Q: Can a person survive a fall at terminal velocity?
A: The short answer? Yes.
For the long answer, read on:
Q: Can a person survive a fall at terminal velocity?
A: The short answer? Yes.
For the long answer, read on:
Two things that affect your chances of survival are how fast you’re going, and what you land on – most importantly what you land on – according to Gavilan College physics instructor Russell Lee.
If you’ve hit terminal velocity, for those who aren’t in the know, you’re basically going as fast as you’re going to go looking the way you do.
Think of a skydiver. If he’s falling spread-eagle, he’ll fall slower than if he were in a nose-dive, right? (Right.)
So he can control his terminal velocity by changing his shape, but in either shape, he’ll eventually hit a limit to how fast he’s falling.
The other consideration is what the person lands on.
If you hit water, you’re more likely to survive than if you land on a concrete slab.
The difference is that the more time you have to absorb the impact, the smaller the impact feels, Lee said.
Water takes a while to absorb an impact, whereas concrete absorbs it rather abruptly.
So, yes, it is possible to survive such a fall, and, in fact, people have done it, but it can’t be pleasant.
So watch out for that last step. It’s a doozy.
