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Comment by YeGoblynQueenne | Hacker News Reader

I remember reading that one.

My feeling was that your best bet is to not have to try.

One of my favorite resources in the how-to-survive-a-fall-from-a-plane genre is wikiHow's "How to Cope With a Double Parachute Failure: 10 Steps." [0] My favorite paragraph is the last step in the second scenario "Alternative: Lack of Companions".

> 5 Expect impact. You are unlikely to have the time or ability to aim for a soft landing-spot, body of water, or other impact site that might improve your chances of survival. There is a minuscule chance that your impact will result in non-life-threatening injuries; if this seems incredibly far-fetched, comfort yourself that double chute failure in modern times is also extremely unlikely, and that you have already beaten worse odds.

[0] http://www.wikihow.com/Cope-With-a-Double-Parachute-Failure

EDIT: readability, grammar

Take the easy way out why don't you! Meanwhile, I think it's more fun to contemplate the possibilities.

I'm thinking I'll build a multi-story, Tempur-Pedic mattress maybe on top of shallow lake. Put some nets around it that extend high into the sky. The person landing on it gets cushion from the water and compression along with soft surface. Will hit it, slow down, and any bouncing contained within nets. Just need some idi... brave adventurer to both fund this structure and use it.

Note: Too great a chance of bouncing outside the nets. A spring or rocket activated top could help but hurts as much as the ground. Make hamburger out of them probably. So, a parallel, Tempur-Pedic surface that springs across the top or is moved into place with helicopters. That should be safer for high-energy, upward bouncing.

Yeah, about that... None of what you said would work. People think water is this "cushion" like thing. In reality it is as solid as a brick unless the surface is broken (the mattress is not enough). A human would just end up breaking every bone in their body attempting to do this.

I've dove in water enough to know this is true. Couldn't recall mechanics of breaking surface properly, though outside basic dives. Modification: something between the mattress and water to break the surface. Maybe repeating structures that do that in a single layer. What now?

Indeed. The practical design is probably something more like a large air bag as used in ski jumping http://www.magicfr.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/babsnowboa...

Yeah, I'm thinking along those lines. I had the thing in mind I see in movies rescuing jumpers and a BouncyCastle. It works for small distances. How to get it to work for larger distances and with potentially other materials?

I imagine the big airbag/bouncy castle thing would work for free fallers. You'd need it to be quite thick like 50ft and quite large so you don't miss it jumping out of the plane. From mountaineering I think polyester tends to have the best strength to price ratio. There's a supplier here that can make 800 tons / month at about $2000/ton. Say 1 kg/m2 and .5 km x .5 km = 250 tons = $500k. Plus airpumps etc. Kickstarter?

Polyester seems interesting for it. A Kickstarter would be funny on this. I'm still at early exploration phase. Holding off.

"HITTING THE OCEAN IS ESSENTIALLY THE SAME AS COLLIDING WITH A SIDEWALK" -from the article

Which is specifically why I put a cushion above water with potential mechanisms for breaking it.

Perhaps an air filled cushion is better than a mattress. Once the subject hits the cushion, it deflates. That would absorb much of the impact and prevent bouncing.

If a large article of debris hit prior and you entered the churning, bubbling water(and not hit the debris), you may get off with just broken toes, feet, hips...maybe. Of course, you'd likely drown before you could swim back to the surface.

Chris MaClugage jumped a ski over three houseboats in Havasu a few years back. They aerated his landing area to buffer the landing/impact. Seems to have worked...

https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.youtube.com/watch%3...

Mythbusters tested this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MythBusters_%282003_season%29#...

You still die:

Dropping Buster with an internal accelerometer from a crane led to difficulty because the dummy continually lost parts on each control impact. Eventually, they managed consistent drops (mostly just below 300 g), finding that the hammer reduced the impact slightly, but the 150-foot (46 m) fall would still be lethal.

Did they test proper landings or drop it randomly? That's a critical thing left out of many analysis. You learn its importance to preventing injury in both martial arts (esp relaxing or break falls) and military, jump school. The methods for high falls should be tested on each of those techniques given prior effectiveness.

It seems they tested whether a hammer could break the surface enough. Larger debris would create a significantly larger disturbance and would probably be more effective.

Doctors recommend not getting cancer.

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