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WITHOUT A PARACHUTE
VISIT [Link]/SCIENCEWORLD TO: ( £ ) Watch a video ^ Download skills sheets [IQ!] View leveled text
20 DECEMBER 12, 2016
iving from an airplane is usually
D
no big deal for Luke Aikins. He’s
a professional skydiver who has
completed about 18,000 jumps,
including aerial stunts for movies like
Iron Man 3 and Godzilla, But a jump he made
last July would have made anyone nervous—
even a seasoned skydiver like Aikins. That’s
because he executed it without a parachute
from an altitude of 7,620 meters (25,000 feet).
During the jump, Aikins reached a speed of
about 190 kilometers (118 miles) per hour as
he rocketed toward Earth. A team of skydivers
wearing parachutes jumped with him, some
filming the feat for a live TV broadcast. After going to be moving forward as well.”
about two minutes, Aikins landed safely in a net After making a jump, a skydiver has forward
on the ground. momentum— an object’s mass multiplied by
“When I landed, it was wild!” says Aikins, its velocity. Momentum indicates how difficult
who lives in Shelton, Washington, and it would be to stop a moving object. Forward
performed the stunt in Simi Valley, California. momentum makes a skydiver’s trajectory diffi
“About halfway up in the plane, I thought: ‘Why cult to predict. Aikins would need to continually
am I doing this?”’ he says. “If you don’t have a adjust his flight path midair to guide himself in
moment like that, you’re not human.” for a safe landing.
To make his stunt a little easier, Aikins—a
ON TA R G E T
trained pilot—borrowed an idea from a type
Before Aikins could pull off his incredible of airport runway lighting called precision
stunt, he needed to make sure he could hit his approach path indicator (PAPI) lights. These
target. Otherwise, the jump would be a disaster. bulbs appear white to a pilot when landing a
“It’s hard for skydivers to land exactly where plane at an ideal angle, but they look red if a
they want,” says Jean Potvin, a physicist at Saint plane is descending at a dangerous angle. Aikins
Louis University in Missouri and an experienced placed eight PAPI lights around the net. “I could
skydiver with about 2,600 jumps. That’s because clearly see them up in the plane,” he says.
“when you jump out of a moving plane, you Continued on the next page —>
REACHING TER M IN A L VELOCITY
Gravity is the force that pulls an object toward Earth's center. Another force, called drag or air resistance, slows it down
Drag is caused by air molecules pushing against the object as it falls. When the amount of drag equals the force of
gravity, an object reaches terminal velocity. That means the object no longer gains velocity, but stays at a constant speed.
SPEEDING UP: SLOWING DOWN: CONSTANT SPEED:
When gravity is greater than drag, By extending his or her arms and When gravity and drag are
the skydiver gains velocity. legs, a skydiver increases surface equal, a skydiver can’t go any
area and drag. This causes the faster. The skydiver has reached
skydiver to slow down. terminal velocity.
[Link]/SCIENCEWORLD 21
—
creating drag. This force slows a skydiver’s fall
and lessens the force at which he or she hits
the ground.
“When you hit a hard surface, it hurts
because the body exerts a force on the surface
and the surface exerts a force back,” says
Potvin. That’s a result of Newton’s third law
A backup net was of motion, which states that for every action,
positioned below
in case the first there is an equal and opposite reaction. “To
net broke. survive a fall, you need to absorb the shock of
the impact.”
Without a parachute, Aikins would speed
toward the ground at terminal velocity—the
highest velocity an object can achieve when
MIDAIR MANEUVER falling through air (see Reaching Terminal
Aikins flipped o n to ® Velocity, p. 21). So he came up with the idea of
his back one second
before hitting the net. using a net—but not an ordinary one you could
buy at a sporting goods store. Aikins had special
lightweight netting made using strong, braided
synthetic fibers. This type of material gave
the net low tension—a force that stretches an
object. “You need a net that’s strong but without
too much tension,” says Potvin. “Otherwise,
you’d bounce right off like a trampoline.”
Aikins suspended the 30-by-30-m
(100-by-100-ft) net on four 46 m (150 ft)-tall
poles. Each pole contained a pulley system
connected to an air piston—a cylinder
that moves within a tube to transfer a
force. When Aikins fell into the net,
the pistons activated to absorb the
impact of his body.
SUCCESSFUL STUNT
During the A second before landing,
jump, Aikins Aikins flipped onto his back so
adjusted his path that his spine and arms would
toward the net. curl in toward his body and
To glide foward, he the net would cradle him like a
placed his arms flat, hammock. “I hit the net and tensed up,
against his sides. To reduce expecting a hard impact,” says Aikins.
his foward movement and to “Then I started laughing—I couldn’t believe
slow down, he stuck out his arms and legs to how light it felt.”
form an X. A GPS device in his helmet notified Aikins says he doesn’t plan to top his latest
him of his forward speed. That way, he would feat, but he hopes the amount of preparation
be alerted if he drifted off target. “If all the fights and engineering it took might change the way
© were white and my forward speed was at zero, I people view these types of stunts. “Some people
CORE might think I go out and do something like this
knew I was falling inside the net,” he says.
QUESTION without a lot of thought behind it,” says Aikins.
Explain two SOFT LANDING “I want to show people that it takes a lot of
of the forces planning and testing to be successful.” 'M'
that affected
Skydivers normally use a parachute to
Aikins’s stunt. land safely. Air pushes against the parachute, —Andrew Klein
22 DECEMBER 12, 2016
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