• partial_accumen@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    Short answers from the video: (but its a good video if you have the time)

    1. They weigh a huge amount and take up a lot of space, so carrying them on every flight would be crazy expensive for extra fuel cost and reduce other baggage cargo that could be carried.
    2. Current day passengers have difficulty just putting and keeping a simple seat belt on. Properly putting on a parachute, especially in the small space you have in an airliner, and successfully deploying it outside are beyond what airline passengers are capable of doing.
    3. Passenger jets fly too high and too fast to survive jumping out of one at cursing altitude. Even if you successfully put on the parachute, got out of the plane without being sucking into an engine or hitting a control surface at 400MPH, you would quickly suffocate from lack of oxygen and/or freeze to death from the sub zero temperatures at that altitude.
    • brian@lemmy.ml
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      8 months ago

      Specifically about that third point, how long would it take to get into a “livable” range if you were free-falling? Like obviously hypoxia is a legit concern, but are you going to get out of that range quick enough to avoid real complications?

      • CapeWearingAeroplane@sopuli.xyz
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        8 months ago

        You’ll survive for quite a while once you’re below 6000 m. In free fall that would take you around 90 s, assuming a fall from 11000 m, and that it takes 200 m (5 s) of fall to reach terminal velocity of 200 km/h.

        This is quite rough, but gives an appropriate order of magnitude. In those 90 s, you would be very likely to pass out and be guaranteed to get severe frost bite. We’re talking major amputations levels of frost bite, as you would be moving at 200 km/h, exposed, in temperatures in the -50 C to -10 C range. I’ve seen people get frost bites moving at 40 km/h in -15 C for a couple of minutes with just a sliver of skin exposed.

        So short answer: You might survive getting into the survivable range, but at the very least you will require intense and immediate medical attention upon landing. Seeing as there will be potentially a couple hundred people spread out over a large, possibly remote, area requiring this attention, it’s unlikely that many, if any, would survive the ordeal, even if most people survived the initial 5000 m of fall into the survivable altitude range.

      • blargerer@kbin.social
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        8 months ago

        I have no idea what a livable height is, but it take about 3 minutes to hit the ground falling from that height (obviously there is a lot of error here depending on the exact person).

    • Seigest@lemmy.ca
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      8 months ago

      Also just being realistic those parachute are probably just going to be questionable bargin bulk buys. They’d be designed to be as cheap as possible while just barely passing legal standards. They never be maintained or inspected. And there’s no way they support my 6’5" 300lbs ass as my frozen corps plummets to the earth below.

      • strcrssd@kbin.social
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        8 months ago

        FAA is one of the better government agencies. In the US, they’d have to be tested and be shown to work on a regular basis in the same way that the emergency rafts and oxygen candles are tested.