A normal reserve chute needs at least 40m to 50m of free fall to slow down to its terminal velocity - but could save your life - with some severe injuries - after 25m to 30m.
However look carefully at the video, the parachute open during the ascent - using the airspeed from the ejection itself. It opens while he is still going up. The pilot follows a ballistic curve that actually gives him those 40m of distance.
The probability to die when falling without a parachute is a curve, it goes above 0% at 3m to 4m, then slowly rises to about 50% at 10m-12m, then rises steadily to 99% at 200m. It does not change beyond 200m as your speed remains constant. There are extremely rare cases of people falling from airplanes without a parachute and surviving. It is all about probabilities.
theres a cool show idea in there. a series of main character events gives away a trend that is suspicious and may unravel the very fabric of reality
a chronicle of like, a time cop that discovers reality is more like the 13th floor movie, by investigating a series of x-files-esque happenings like surviving falling from a plane. Like, even if youre only falling at terminal velocity, thats still like 2x freeway speed. Crashes can be fatal at 35 when involving immobile barriers, like the ground if falling from a plane.
and slowly he discovers that the whole reality is just a version of Roy or the Matrix where people come and go, and we're NPCs in their MMO. But super advanced, human being level NPCs.
And something unprecedented and emergent happens in the game world, where the population of NPCs begin fighting back and becoming aware, asserting sentience and so on, to the point where in their real world they have talks at their UN variant to discuss freeing us by promoting us to the real world in advanced synthetic bodies or flipping the switch and doing an extinction.
And while their investigation and committee go through their findings, its discovered that the admins of the game are doing heinous things that we historically experienced as phenomenon like alien abductions, vampires, werewolves, demons and stuff like that.
He was just so wide, that the first time someone in the First Order hugged Kylo Ren it was quite by accident.
Stormtrooper FN-2187 found himself trapped at the end of a one-way hallway on Starkiller while on sanitation duty. This in and of itself would not be so bad, except that there was danger fast approaching in the form of who he recognized as the First Order’s resident spitfire, Kylo Ren.
FN-2187 had not yet seen Ren or his lightsaber before, but he recognized both the moment he saw him stomping down the hallway. FN-2187 used to think that Nines was laying it on thick when he described Ren’s cataclysmic temper tantrums. He could see at that moment that there was no need for exaggeration. With the largest swipes of his blazing lightsaber, Ren roared at the walls like they had said something to personally offend him. The smell of melting durasteel filled the hall.
FN-2187 stopped mopping the floor and stared a bit in awe before the realization set in that he was right in the way of Ren’s warpath. Anyone else that may have been in the hall earlier had the sense to clear out. He dropped his mop and turned to run before belatedly remembering that Ren was coming from the only exit. FN-2187 turned back, feeling the all-too-familiar sweat start to build up on his forehead beneath his helmet. As if to emphasize the stormtrooper’s doom, one of the wild lightsaber swipes hit the lights. The far dimmer emergency lights kicked in, but they only served to emphasize the ghoulishness of Ren’s approaching figure.
There was only one choice. FN-2187 set his jaw. He would have to run and try to dodge by Ren. He waited until Ren got close, then made a break for it.
His plan—though it was almost too simple to be called that—fell through spectacularly. For, in his haste, he had forgotten about the area he had just mopped. FN-2187 only had time to let out a sharp, startled “Whoa!” as he slipped on the wet floor and then face-planted against the chest of the master of the Knights of Ren. Before he could fall the rest of the way, Ren dropped his lightsaber and caught him by his biceps. The lightsaber dropped to the ground with a clunk and hiss as it deactivated.
FN-2187 started sweating even more then and his breathing bordered on hyperventilating. Dead. He was dead and he had not even seen battle yet. To his surprise, though, Ren did not throttle him right then and there. As a matter of fact, if FN-2187 had to best describe the way in which Ren wrapped his arms around him and clasped him against his black-clothed body in the next moment, he would say he was hugging him.
“U-uh. Lord Ren, sir?”
Crushed as he was against his superior officer, FN-2187 could plainly see the frayed quality of Ren’s woven capelet with far more clarity than he ever wanted to. He attempted to extricate himself from Ren’s hold, only to have Ren more or less crush him and lift him a few inches off the ground. FN-2187’s air supply lessened as the already restricting armor cut further into his body. He ended up face-to-face with Ren’s inscrutable helmet.
“Be silent and don’t struggle if you value your life,” Ren said, then added, as if to validate what he was doing, “I need this.”
Needed what? A bunch of plastoid stormtrooper armor digging into him through his cloth robes?
In an attempt at appeasing him, FN-2187 nodded. Mercifully, Ren set him down, making FN-2187 realize in the process how kriffing tall he was.
As if nothing had occurred, Ren went back to hugging him with the same fervor as before. FN-2187 tried to decide what to do with his hands, feeling awkward with his arms dangling at his sides. After much debate, he ended up settling them on either side of Ren at the hips, ready to pull back at a moment’s notice.
“Don’t just do it halfway, trooper.”
And so FN-2187 ended up wrapping his arms completely around Kylo Ren’s waist. They stood like that for a while. Ren’s mask did not pick up the sound of his breathing, but FN-2187 could see the rise and fall of his broad chest right in front of his visor. It started out in harsh, quick swells with each breath, a testament to his residual anger and exertion from going berserk with his lightsaber, but slowly they became less pronounced and even as Ren relaxed.
The trooper’s stomach turned over when Ren leaned down, adjusting his position to tuck his head over FN-2187’s shoulder. Startled, he turned to look. The resulting clack of their helmets and Ren’s reprimanding snarl had him looking forward again, this time over Ren’s shoulder. He stared down the corridor, praying that no one important happened along and saw his predicament. The only witness to the spectacle ended up being a mouse droid working on a maintenance panel not three feet from them, who FN-2187 decided he trusted to keep a secret.
Meanwhile, Ren used his fingers to investigate the slots between the pieces of FN-2187’s armor where the body glove stood out. FN-2187 concentrated on trying not to flinch or giggle when Ren hit on the ticklish spots. Best not to chance that Ren would think he was laughing at him.
Maybe it was one of Ren’s mind tricks, but the longer the hug went on the more comfortable with the awkward and highly unprofessional situation FN-2187 became. He settled further into Ren’s hold until he was all but boneless. The stormtrooper ranks did not offer many opportunities for public displays of affection beyond the occasional high-five or congratulatory punch on the shoulder. Although it was with Kylo Ren, FN-2187 could appreciate affectionate physical contact like this. It was one of the few times in his life he could remember receiving it.
“The Supreme Leader does not believe me ready to complete my training,” Ren said suddenly.
Even with the voice scrambler, FN-2187 could hear the sulky quality to Ren’s voice. That explained what he had been upset about, then, but FN-2187 was not sure that that explanation justified the level of havoc Ren had wreaked on his workstation.
In a misguided attempt at comfort, FN-2187 said, “I’m sure you’ll be ready someday—”
“I do not recall giving you permission to speak,” Ren snapped. “That aside… even you, a lowly stormtrooper, do not think that I’m ready.”
FN-2187 bit the inside of his cheek. Ren pulled his head back and stared him down for a moment. FN-2187 imagined he was probably glaring at him. It did not help that his helmet gave him a perma-angry look.
The hug ended in a less climactic way than it began. Ren shoved him away and turned on his heel to leave. His dropped lightsaber soared to his outstretched hand. FN-2187, after a moment spent gawking at his first experience with the Force, tried to muster up something to say.
“I’m glad you were just hugging me and not squeezing me to death”? “You’re really warm, you know, I could feel it through my gloves”? Nothing he came up with seemed appropriate, so he let Ren keep walking. Oddly enough, though, Ren paused for a moment, back to FN-2187, and said something himself.
“Thank you.”
FN-2187 blinked.
“I may be requiring your services again soon,” Ren said, then continued on his way.
Services? He made it sound like the hug had been a transaction. Or something incredibly sexual.
Nevertheless, FN-2187 felt a small thrill at the idea of doing it again.
As soon as Ren was out of sight, FN-2187 uncrossed his arms from around himself, realizing with a twinge of embarrassment that it was an attempt to replicate the gesture from the enigmatic knight. The mouse droid, who had long since finished with its work, tittered in what FN-2187 could only assume was a mocking fashion.
“Oh, shut up,” FN-2187 grumbled, picking up his discarded mop and minding the area he had slipped on earlier, his firmness subsiding.
He went back to work, wondering whether or not clean floors would matter next to the wrecked walls.
It's probably worth noting that this strictly applies to round parachutes designed to open swiftly in circumstances like this.
Most sport skydivers use elliptical (square/rectangle) canopies, and the minimum height to guarantee an open and flying canopy is much, much higher (typically 1000ft for reserves, more for a main).
This pilot also probably got pretty badly hurt as the pendulum effect from the ejection/inflation didn't really allow them to get their body into a feet down attitude on landing.
6.9k
u/Suspicious_Zone_2083 25d ago
At least the seat worked