JohnMitchell

Thanks for posting that, Kallend. Not only were all those men very brave in the face of almost certain death, but they are an inspiration in their resilience to work the problem under pressure, to never give up. I can't tell you how many times I've heard the tapes of Capt. Haynes and the air traffic controllers, but he never lost his sense of humor and was as cool as the other side of the pillow.

because..... Don't be thinking you're the first beautiful woman to say that to me. Get in line, sister.

Oh yeah, your busted hoof. Gonna do the beach jump anyway?

It's beautiful here for the next couple of days. I'm definitely jumping tomorrow after a day of yard work today.

[reply I would say yes. On my first ballonjump the feeling was insane. My body was screaming! My first hovering helo jump? First second I screamed like a little girl.

Ask yourself how many jumpers you've known that have died jumping. Then ask yourself how many jumpers you've known have died in car accidents. For me, my first number was waaay bigger. It could be just that skydivers are really, really good drivers.

Robin, I woke up this morning thinking about all this. I think you're confusing "being under the influence of gravity" with actually experiencing a G force. The Earth, and every other body in the universe, have gravity fields that extend outward towards infinity. Sure, the effect decreases with the square of the distance, but the Earth's gravitational pull goes well past orbital altitudes. Being weightless, or zero G, does not require you be free of gravity. just that you not resist it. Imagine a G meter the size and shape of a baseball sitting on a table on Earth. It will register 1 G. Pick it up and toss it into the air. As your hand accelerates it upwards, it will register several G's. As soon as it leaves your hand and stops accelerating upwards, the G meter will go to zero (discounting the slight drag of air resistance.) It will stay at zero as the ball completes its arc and starts falling back to Earth. When you catch it, the G meter will once again register high positive G's. Once your hand comes to a stop, it will register 1 G again, same as resting on the table. Do you agree with this model? It's possible your extensive base jumping has desensitized you to feeling unusual during low-to-zero G moments. Astronauts in orbit adapt to weightlessness, soon feeling very comfortable in that environment. Some do report bouts of space sickness, though. I'm saying they're getting that "droppy" feeling.

There you go. That matches what I've been saying.

Turned out he was a guy.

I love watching anything done with that much expertise, but STOL operations have a special fascination for me. The skill of the pilots flying at speeds I've ridden bikes never ceases to amaze me. I know it's not magic, but it sure looks like it to me.

You feel no gravity when you're falling, Robin. You only feel the G force when you resist it by falling thru air at terminal velocity, standing on solid ground, sitting in chair, floating on (or in) a body of water. Are the astronaut trainees not weightless during the parabolic "zero G" rides in the Vomit Comet? They're are certainly not at orbital velocities. It's just that their aircraft is in a ballistic trajectory. It's wings are not creating lift, the plane is not resisting gravity. BTW, the weightlessness for them starts during the pushover from the initial zoom climb, while they are still traveling upwards. Wrap your head around that. Imagine being in an elevator when someone cuts the cable. Will you not feel weightless inside the cabin as you plunge to the basement? A quote from you "Zero airspeed equals zero airspeed. " Yes, and as long as you stay on the top of the building or in the balloon, you'll feel 1 G. But as soon as you leave you will feel weightess, zero G, until you're falling fast enough that the wind resists gravity for you. I know you have way many more base jumps than I do, but I've got my share of cutaways and helo jumps. I feel weightless on them. Once again, gravity is a tricky thing to think about. We're under its influence throughout the universe, but we only feel it when we resist it. Remember, too, that any constant acceleration is indistinguishable from the acceleration of gravity. Once again, it's our perception of gravity as a force that causes our confusion.

So many guys say "Why are good looking women such bitches?" I say "It's because if they're nice and smile at you, you act like they want to have your baby."

My 23 yo daughter rides a motorcycle on the streets of Boston. Am I happy about that? No, but it's her decision, not mine. Did my parents like skydiving? No, but it was my decision. They eventually got used to it.

It's simpler if you just remember that gravity is a curvature of space-time that we perceive as a force. The astronauts in orbit are traveling in a straight path thru curved space.

Robin, sorry but you're wrong. Jumping at zero airspeed (balloon, hovering helo or BASE) will definitely have you experiencing almost zero G until you build up airspeed. It's simple physics.

Why the parachutes? A mouse's terminal velocity is so low it won't be killed by the light impact.

Doesn't the fact that you acknowledge some places and times it's not safe to go out constitute feeling threatened?

Kept drinking all the beer in the fridge.

There's a problem with that wording. "Unwanted" behavior is not necessarily "threatening". The two should not be put into the same category, as this makes people believe that most women are frequently threatened. When in fact much of this may simply be innocent behavior that is simply unwanted. For example, a married woman sitting with female friends in a bar may have someone offer to buy them a drink - that may be unwanted, but it's certainly not a threat. You're right, John, they are different. I think women worry that "unwanted" could escalate to "threatening", esp. in an environment with no safeguards. Crowded bar, probably okay. Dark, lonely street, definitely could get out of hand. That's why meeting a woman takes a light touch.

Could it be the huge chest and biceps? Even though we're "civilized" grownups, during confrontation our nature makes us consider "Okay, could I take this guy in a fight?" That's evolutionary survival talking. I've done the tire changing thing for little old ladies. But with my arms I usually have to have them loosen the lug nuts a little. . . Seriously, if women were twice our size, twice our strength and sexually aggressive, men would develop a highly tuned sense of danger and learn to avoid threatening situations. I never really considered it until one night, when I was working late and talking to Vskydiver on the phone. She said the kids were asleep and it was a beautiful night and she wished she could go take a walk. I told her she should. She told me there was no way she was going out after dark by herself, even in our quiet little neighborhood. I, like many other guys, had never really thought about it.

I used to joke/dream about some day having a gadget the size of a book of matches that would hold all of my record collection on it. It's here. I also have a hard drive the size of a fat paperback that holds all my movie collection on it and a kindle with my entire library. Let's hear it for cheap memory.

Yes I am. Or diving out, belly into the relative wind. Same thing, same flat presentation.

Sorry to be so late getting into this thread. It's been a busy night at the radar scopes. Indeed I had stated in my previous post that: "Horizontal acceleration/deceleration and vertical acceleration/deceleration are totally independent events and one does not affect the other". Sorry Mike, you sure had. I had glimpsed the start of the thread early in my shift, then posted late last night w/o a good chance to read the whole thread. I'd buy beer, but it's not my first time. I still find it interesting that our gravity vector moves so quickly when we jump out. We're so used to working "on the hill" we take it for granted. I try to explain to students that when you first exit, straight down is actually towards the front of the plane. We understand the relative wind principle. I guess I'd just like to add that gravity is relative to that wind too.

Bill, I say that leaving the plane flying at your terminal velocity, let's say 120 mph, you'll feel not one third G, but 1 G of acceleration, since that's the wind force of a 120 mph wind on your body. That's, of course, the amount of wind it takes to balance the force of gravity in regular freefall, correct? So 120 mph wind force = 1 G. As you well know, wind resistance is equal to the square of the speed, so a 168 mph exit would give you 2 G's, a 60 mph exit would give you a quarter G. I certainly agree with you about those high speed exits. You can feel the "oooph" when you hit the relative wind.

Sorry to be so late getting into this thread. It's been a busy night at the radar scopes. It's not that the forces "cancel each other", They are quite independent. When you jump out of a plane, you immediately start to slow down along your horizontal path because of wind resistance, correct? This decelleration causes your body, including your inner ear, to undergo a positive G, not towards the Earth, but towards the forward horizon. For the first few moments out the door, "straight down" is towards the front of the plane, not just from a relative wind point of view, but from your gravity vector as well. As you continue to bleed off your forward speed and pick up your vertical speed, your gravity vector moves down towards the planet. It's not the lack of gravity, but the moving about of the vector that can be disorienting on exit. If you exit at an airspeed equal to your terminal velocity, you feel exactly 1 G of wind force accelerating you backwards. Faster or slower exit speeds give you more or less G load. Zero airspeed, such as a balloon or hovering helicopter, give you zero G loading, therefore making your stomach "feel funny."