unplanned_freefall.md (9153B)
1 Unplanned Freefall? Some Survival Tips 2 ====================================== 3 4 By David Carkeet <carkeetdavid@gmail.com> 5 Original: http://www.greenharbor.com/fffolder/carkeet.html 6 7 Admit it: You want to be the sole survivor of an airline disaster. You aren't 8 looking for a disaster to happen, but if it does, you see yourself coming 9 through it. I'm here to tell you that you're not out of touch with reality—you 10 can do it. Sure, you'll take a few hits, and I'm not saying there won't be some 11 sweaty flashbacks later on, but you'll make it. You'll sit up in your hospital 12 bed and meet the press. Refreshingly, you will keep God out of your public 13 comments, knowing that it's unfair to sing His praises when all of your dead 14 fellow-passengers have no platform from which to offer an alternative view. 15 16 Let's say your jet blows apart at 35,000 feet. You exit the aircraft, and you 17 begin to descend independently. Now what? 18 19 First of all, you're starting off a full mile higher than Everest, so after a 20 few gulps of disappointing air you're going to black out. This is not a bad 21 thing. If you have ever tried to keep your head when all about you are losing 22 theirs, you know what I mean. This brief respite from the ambient fear and chaos 23 will come to an end when you wake up at about 15,000 feet. Here begins the final 24 phase of your descent, which will last about a minute. It is a time of planning 25 and preparation. Look around you. What equipment is available? None? Are you 26 sure? Look carefully. Perhaps a shipment of packed parachutes was in the cargo 27 hold, and the blast opened the box and scattered them. One of these just might 28 be within reach. Grab it, put it on, and hit the silk. You're sitting pretty. 29 30 Other items can be helpful as well. Let nature be your guide. See how yon maple 31 seed gently wafts to earth on gossamer wings. Look around for a proportionate 32 personal vehicle—some large, flat, aerodynamically suitable piece of wreckage. 33 Mount it and ride, cowboy! Remember: molecules are your friends. You want a 34 bunch of surface-area molecules hitting a bunch of atmospheric molecules in 35 order to reduce your rate of acceleration. 36 37 As you fall, you're going to realize that your previous visualization of this 38 experience has been off the mark. You have seen yourself as a loose, free body, 39 and you've imagined yourself in the belly-down, limbs-out position (good: you 40 remembered the molecules). But, pray tell, who unstrapped your seat belt? You 41 could very well be riding your seat (or it could be riding you; if so, 42 straighten up and fly right!); you might still be connected to an entire row of 43 seats or to a row and some of the attached cabin structure. 44 45 If thus connected, you have some questions to address. Is your new conveyance 46 air-worthy? If your entire row is intact and the seats are occupied, is the 47 passenger next to you now going to feel free to break the code of silence your 48 body language enjoined upon him at takeoff? If you choose to go it alone, simply 49 unclasp your seat belt and drift free. Resist the common impulse to use the 50 wreckage fragment as a "jumping-off point" to reduce your plunge-rate, not 51 because you will thereby worsen the chances of those you leave behind (who are 52 they kidding? they're goners!), but just because the effect of your puny jump is 53 so small compared with the alarming Newtonian forces at work. 54 55 Just how fast are you going? Imagine standing atop a train going 120 mph, and 56 the train goes through a tunnel but you do not. You hit the wall above the 57 opening at 120 mph. That's how fast you will be going at the end of your fall. 58 Yes, it's discouraging, but proper planning requires that you know the facts. 59 You're used to seeing things fall more slowly. You're used to a jump from a 60 swing or a jungle gym, or a fall from a three-story building on TV action news. 61 Those folks are not going 120 mph. They will not bounce. You will bounce. Your 62 body will be found some distance away from the dent you make in the soil (or 63 crack in the concrete). Make no mistake: you will be motoring. 64 65 At this point you will think: trees. It's a reasonable thought. The concept of 66 "breaking the fall" is powerful, as is the hopeful message implicit in the 67 nursery song "Rock-a-bye, Baby," which one must assume from the affect of the 68 average singer tells the story not of a baby's death but of its survival. You 69 will want a tall tree with an excurrent growth pattern—a single, undivided trunk 70 with lateral branches, delicate on top and thicker as you cascade downward. A 71 conifer is best. The redwood is attractive for the way it rises to shorten your 72 fall, but a word of caution here: the redwood's lowest branches grow dangerously 73 high from the ground; having gone 35,000 feet, you don't want the last 50 feet 74 to ruin everything. The perfectly tiered Norfolk Island pine is a natural safety 75 net, so if you're near New Zealand, you're in luck, pilgrim. When crunch time 76 comes, elongate your body and hit the tree limbs at a perfectly flat angle as 77 close to the trunk as possible. Think! 78 79 Snow is good—soft, deep, drifted snow. Snow is lovely. Remember that you are the 80 pilot and your body is the aircraft. By tilting forward and putting your hands 81 at your side, you can modify your pitch and make progress not just vertically 82 but horizontally as well. As you go down 15,000 feet, you can also go sideways 83 two-thirds of that distance—that's two miles! Choose your landing zone. You be 84 the boss. 85 86 If your search discloses no trees or snow, the parachutist's "five-point 87 landing" is useful to remember even in the absence of a parachute. Meet the 88 ground with your feet together, and fall sideways in such a way that five parts 89 of your body successively absorb the shock, equally and in this order: feet, 90 calf, thigh, buttock, and shoulder. 120 divided by 5 = 24. Not bad! 24 mph is 91 only a bit faster than the speed at which experienced parachutists land. There 92 will be some bruising and breakage but no loss of consciousness to delay your 93 press conference. Just be sure to apportion the 120-mph blow in equal fifths. 94 Concentrate! 95 96 Much will depend on your attitude. Don't let negative thinking ruin your 97 descent. If you find yourself dwelling morbidly on your discouraging starting 98 point of seven miles up, think of this: Thirty feet is the cutoff for fatality 99 in a fall. That is, most who fall from thirty feet or higher die. Thirty feet! 100 It's nothing! Pity the poor sod who falls from such a "height." What kind of 101 planning time does he have? 102 103 Think of the pluses in your situation. For example, although you fall faster and 104 faster for the first fifteen seconds or so, you soon reach "terminal 105 velocity"—the point at which atmospheric drag resists gravity's acceleration in 106 a perfect standoff. Not only do you stop speeding up, but because the air is 107 thickening as you fall, you actually begin to slow down. With every foot that 108 you drop, you are going slower and slower. 109 110 There's more. When parachutists focus on a landing zone, sometimes they become 111 so fascinated with it that they forget to pull the ripcord. Since you probably 112 have no ripcord, "target fixation" poses no danger. Count your blessings. 113 114 Think of others who have gone before you. Think of Vesna Vulovic, a flight 115 attendant who in 1972 fell 33,000 feet in the tail of an exploded DC-9 jetliner; 116 she landed in snow and lived. Vesna knew about molecules. 117 118 Think of Joe Hermann of the Royal Australian Air Force, blown out of his bomber 119 in 1944 without a parachute. He found himself falling through the night sky amid 120 airplane debris and wildly grabbed a piece of it. It turned out to be not debris 121 at all, but rather a fellow flyer in the process of pulling his ripcord. Joe 122 hung on and, as a courtesy, hit the ground first, breaking the fall of his 123 savior and a mere two ribs of his own. Joe was not a quitter. Don't you be. 124 125 Think of Nick Alkemade, an RAF tailgunner who jumped from his flaming turret 126 without a parachute and fell 18,000 feet. When he came to and saw stars 127 overhead, he lit a cigarette. He would later describe the fall as "a pleasant 128 experience." Nick's trick: fir trees, underbrush, and snow. 129 130 But in one important regard, Nick is a disappointment. He gave up. As he 131 plummeted to Germany, he concluded he was going to die and felt "a strange 132 peace." This is exactly the wrong kind of thinking. It will get you nowhere but 133 dead fast. You cannot give up and plan aggressively at the same time. 134 135 To conclude, here are some words that might help you avoid such a collapse of 136 resolve on your way down. 137 138 * "Keep a-goin'." (Frank L. Stanton) 139 * "Failure is not an option." (Ed Harris, as the guy in Apollo 13 who says, 140 "Failure is not an option") 141 * "'Hope' is the thing with feathers 142 That perches in the soul 143 And sings the tune without the words 144 And never stops-at all." (Emily Dickinson) 145 146 Note: A different version of Unplanned Freefall was originally published in 147 [Modern Humorist](modern_humorist). 148 149 Interested in more information on David Carkeet? Try [this link][david_carkeet]. 150 151 [modern_humorist]: http://www.modernhumorist.com/ 152 [david_carkeet]: http://www.davidcarkeet.com/