Taking a Fall | Hacker News Reader

Taking a Fall

popularmechanics.com

45 pointswholeness21 comments

> The ultimate learn-by-doing experience might be a lesson from Japanese parachutist Yasuhiro Kubo, who holds the world record in the activity's banzai category. The sky diver tosses his chute from the plane and then jumps out after it, waiting as long as possible to retrieve it, put it on and pull the ripcord. In 2000, Kubo—starting from 9,842 feet—fell for 50 seconds before recovering his gear. A safer way to practice your technique would be at one of the wind-tunnel simulators found at about a dozen U.S. theme parks and malls.

I’ve met some crazy people who’ve done some crazy things. But wow.

> There is no known, credible evidence that a banzai skydive has ever really occurred

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banzai_skydiving

I had a little booklet 20 years ago or so that had a section suspiciously similar to this one - I think it was called "The Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook"

I still have this book! I loved it as a kid...

Rule 1: Make sure you have your phone with you so you can search for and consult this article.

Highly recommend subscribing before you look it up, though.

I wonder if it is better to stay with the plane crash rather than to leave it, like the article mentions ?

Maybe if the crash is in a jungle like the last survivor, it is better to leave your landing crater and find help.

It depends on where you land really. Assuming you read the whole article, take the account of the survivor who crashed in the Amazon rain forest for example. If she'd stayed put, she'd have died.

Secondary comment RE: that particular crash story. We got Reader's Digest when I was a kid, and that story was a "Drama in Real Life" story in an early 70's issue.

Perhaps it really is better to stay? I assume that authorities will be searching for the plane and will usually find it in <10 days if it crashes on land, and you also have a chance to find some edible food in the wreckage?

From the Wikipedia page on the Amazon rain forest crash...

  The sole survivor was 17-year-old Juliane Koepcke. Despite a broken collar bone, a deep gash to her right arm, an eye injury, and concussion, she was able to trek through the dense Amazon jungle for 10 days and found shelter in a hut. Local lumberjacks found her and took her by canoe back to civilization.

  It was later determined that as many as 14 other passengers also survived the initial crash but died awaiting rescue.

It's just one case, but in the case of isolation, moving seems smarter than staying put.

Isn't the usual advice from Search & Rescue professionals to stay put? For example,

> “It’s best to stay in one place because the searchers will get to that place,” Strong said. Moving just a mile creates a search area of three square miles, Strong said. Move two miles, and the search area expands to 12 square miles.

Source: https://www.seattletimes.com/life/travel/if-youre-lost-in-th...

I imagine that advice becomes better every year, as response times improve. Of course, if there's no reason to think rescuers would be able to fix your initial location to any reasonable precision, then I guess you have to use your head.

This assumes rescuers know where to start looking. The survivors of Uruguayan AF flight 571, described in the book Alive, waited 2 months at the crash site before hiking 10 days to find help (losing 8 people to avalanche and resorting to cannibalism in the mean time).

When I looked at it, you want a tree. Small branches -> large branches. Head first or tucked in. Yes it might skewer you but if you are worried about that you don't really understand your odds.

This talk is really good, just for critical planning it's interesting, (Luke Aikins did the jump without a parachute into a net) -

Skydiver Luke Aikins at the 2016 GeekWire Summit - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UtrpLIDHFGU (23 mins)

Just wear an airbag-suit or wingsuit when you enter a plane.

I think you'd still want a parachute or something. That's probably more effective and potentially more compact. Maybe not as fun though

The airbag-suit still wins if you can't get out of the plane in time.

How do you land a wingsuit?

suddenly