Speed of sound without an aircraft...or rocket

[Gabkicks]

http://video.google.com/videoplay?d...ing+from+the+edge+of+the+world"+playable:true

 

[DQuaN]

Scary stuff that. I remember hearing about one guy doing that and his suit malfunctioned, causing his hand to practically burst.

 

[Sting]

Holy........
What the hell goes through a person's mind right before jumping from that height apart from is my chute gonna work!

 

[Specialized]

That is pretty cool stuff! Where do i sign up?

 

[Pupik]

I saw that few months ago; he was dropped from some sort of aircraft from a height of 100,000-120,000 feet.

 

[DQuaN]

He was dropped from a balloon.

 

[Magic069]

Its purpose was to find out if a man could survive such a sky dive. Then try to apply what they learned to a possible escape method for space missions.

I think this man still holds the record for highest speed, and altitude jumped from. I did hear though, people are in the works to try to beat it.

 

[HACKr]

Man, thats just too insane. Going that fast without aircraft.

 

[SRV2LOW4ME]

Did they give him a diaper? I'm pretty sure i'd need one if I was going to do that. The height alone would make me fill my pants to the point where my parachute wouldn't be able to slow down all the weight!

 

[BMWteamPTG]

no, you gotta have some balls to do what he did. no messing around when you do something like that. damn...

the baloon he fell from is similar to todays weather baloons.

 

[Lee]

How could you make yourself do that, jump out of a little capsule just to reach 900mph and then hope and pray a little sheet of fabric will slow you down enough.

 

[Dave A]

The parachute wasn't the only thing slowing him down, wind resistance was, once he got closer to the earth into a thicker atmosphere his speed reduced a lot. It was only then that he opened his parachute and that slowed him down enough to land without dieing.

 

[Lamboracer]

Didnt the air ressitance make his suit extremely hot, i mean space crafts need those special heat resistance panels.

 

[Dave A]

He was falling at 900mph with almost no resistance, when he hit thicker air it might have got hotter, but nothing extreme, like when a shuttle breaks through the ozone layer which he didn't pass through.

 

[F1GTR]

That's freaking crazy.

 

[keram]

How thin was the air compared to air down here? because 900mph in a vacuum will do you no harm whatsoever and thin air is going to do little also it just depends how thin.

I thought that fastest a human could fall due to terminal velocity was 120mph once your in the lower atmosphere where the air is thick enough so i'm guessing hes too high for the speed to do MUCH.

I'm not trying to lessen what he is doing its still highly risky im just trying to build myself some perspective of the event.

 

[Gabkicks]

yeah because of the lack of friction (lack of gasses to cause friction) he was able to fall much faster than if he were closer to the earth. it makes sense but i never thought about it untill i saw the vid

 

[Seanman]

So what happens when he gets closer to earth, with a thicker atmosphere? At that high of a speed, won't he just burn up like meteorites?

 

[ExigeEvan]

No, because he's not actually entering the atmosphere as such, as far as I know.

There was a guy a little while ago that went up in a balloon then flew over the english channel in a free fall drop.

 

[keram]

No, because he's not actually entering the atmosphere as such, as far as I know.

There was a guy a little while ago that went up in a balloon then flew over the english channel in a free fall drop.

i remember that doesnt seem like much considering the angle he was at

say he was 50000ft in the air and the channel is what 20-30 000ft across? (guessing) and he had 'wings' he basically just fell and let the wind catch him a bit

im sure it was difficult really ... I mean he had to go france its not easy voluntarily going there

my jokes are soo poor

 

[ferrari_chris]

So what happens when he gets closer to earth, with a thicker atmosphere? At that high of a speed, won't he just burn up like meteorites?

He's not going fast enough. He's only going 900mph. Meteorites are like 50-60km/s! That's over 100,000mph.

Same with the Space Shuttle (although slower - it re-enters at 17,500mph) the reason they heat up from the friction is because they are going a lot faster than this guy did.

He's quite a bit slower really.

 

[Danoff]

He's not going fast enough. He's only going 900mph. Meteorites are like 50-60km/s! That's over 100,000mph.

Same with the Space Shuttle (although slower - it re-enters at 17,500mph) the reason they heat up from the friction is because they are going a lot faster than this guy did.

He's quite a bit slower really.

...and the reason he's going slower is???

Because he wasn't in orbit. The shuttle is going quite a bit faster because the shuttle has to maintain orbit.

There's faster-than-orbit, which is how a meteor would be classified.
There's orbit, which is how the shuttle would be classified.
Then there's too-slow-to-acheive orbit, which is how this guy would be classified.

It's all about lateral velocity, of which this guy had none. You've seen how the solid rocket boosters tilt over on their side as the shuttle acheives orbit right? That's because velocity perpendicular to the pull of gravity is what keeps you from ending up in the planet. This guy had zero velocity perpendicular to the pull of gravity. The shuttle has enough, and meteors have too much to stay in orbit.

(I admit, the above was a bit of a simplification, but it's close enough)

 

[Niels]

He's not going fast enough. He's only going 900mph. Meteorites are like 50-60km/s! That's over 100,000mph.

Same with the Space Shuttle (although slower - it re-enters at 17,500mph) the reason they heat up from the friction is because they are going a lot faster than this guy did.

He's quite a bit slower really.

Damn that must be very frustrating, taking those risks to go extremely fast without an aircraft, and afterwards realising that a meteorite goes 1000 times faster, hehe.

I didn't know that parachutes could resist opening at that speed. I mean, when it has just opened, the thing must be able to cope with enormous pressure. I guess thats what parachutes are made for.

 

[DQuaN]

Damn that must be very frustrating, taking those risks to go extremely fast without an aircraft, and afterwards realising that a meteorite goes 1000 times faster, hehe.

I didn't know that parachutes could resist opening at that speed. I mean, when it has just opened, the thing must be able to cope with enormous pressure. I guess thats what parachutes are made for.

Not quite.

First of all, i don't think he would have opened the chute at 900mph. But even if he did, the reason he is going so fast is because the air is so thin and not causing much resistance. Hence, it will not cause much resistance to the parachute.

As his altitude dropped, the air would have got thicker and thicker, which would have slowed him down more and more, until he reached he normal atmospheric terminal velocity (around 120mph).

 

[Niels]

Not quite.

First of all, i don't think he would have opened the chute at 900mph. But even if he did, the reason he is going so fast is because the air is so thin and not causing much resistance. Hence, it will not cause much resistance to the parachute.

As his altitude dropped, the air would have got thicker and thicker, which would have slowed him down more and more, until he reached he normal atmospheric terminal velocity (around 120mph).

Oh yeah offcourse If the air is thin for him then it's thin for the parachute too.

Gosh I hope someone will show me how fast it exactly is. I cant even begin to imagine 900mph. What if they would get 2 balloons up, the skydiver in one that would be higher than the other, so they could film the skydiver in his free fall at 900mph rushing by. The hard part would be, to rush by close enough to the cameras in the lower balloon, but who doesn't expect it to be challenging?

I have always seen footage of planes flying at unbelievable speeds, but the camera would go along side the plane, instead of somehow keep it in one place, and let the plane go by. I really hope to see for once how fast 900MPH, for example, really is.

 

[Danoff]

I have always seen footage of planes flying at unbelievable speeds, but the camera would go along side the plane, instead of somehow keep it in one place, and let the plane go by. I really hope to see for once how fast 900MPH, for example, really is.

Check out an airshow. They often have aircraft do low altitude just slightly sub-sonic passes. It may not quite be 900MPH, but it should give you a good feel for the speed.

 

[FoolKiller]

Check out an airshow. They often have aircraft do low altitude just slightly sub-sonic passes. It may not quite be 900MPH, but it should give you a good feel for the speed.

I've seen them where the jet flies off to restricted air space to get up to near-supersonic and then comes in and does a fly-by.

This past weekend I saw an airshow with the Blue Angels and they never got above 450 mph. It was plenty fast, though.

They never gave us a speed on the F-15 but he did a vertical climb to show its ability to hit 15,000 feet in just over two minutes. He disappeared in a cloud after about 20 seconds.

 

[Danoff]

I've seen them where the jet flies off to restricted air space to get up to near-supersonic and then comes in and does a fly-by.

This past weekend I saw an airshow with the Blue Angels and they never got above 450 mph. It was plenty fast, though.

They never gave us a speed on the F-15 but he did a vertical climb to show its ability to hit 15,000 feet in just over two minutes. He disappeared in a cloud after about 20 seconds.

I went to one in houston where they did a flyby just slightly below the speed of sound, which in houston - given the amount of water in the air - was probably pretty darn fast.

They wanted to show off the air condensation over the wings. Pretty cool, pretty freaking fast too.

 

[FoolKiller]

I went to one in houston where they did a flyby just slightly below the speed of sound, which in houston - given the amount of water in the air - was probably pretty darn fast.

They wanted to show off the air condensation over the wings. Pretty cool, pretty freaking fast too.

I have a picture of one of the Blue Angels' planes with the trails behind his wingtips during a high speed maneuver. I plan on posting them as soon as I get them cleaned up and cropped.

 

[DQuaN]

F-14 at Mach 1+