High Altitude Parchuting

Terry

Terry

Line Up and Wait
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Terry
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The other day a guy parachuted from 106,000 feet.

I think it took him some 6 hours to get that high in his balloon.

Did he have to take the earth's rotation into consideration to configure his landing? If he went up in California did he come down in California?

Terry :idea:
 
Good question.

Also, what about winds aloft forecasts? The charts I've seen stop at 39,000 ft.
 
I'm no expert, but I would think that since the winds are reported in relation to a fixed point on the ground, that they would account for any effects of the ground slipping by the atmosphere.

If they have accurate wind reports and can accurately predict the vertical velocities during each stage of the ascent and descent, calculating where to release to achieve a particular landing point would be fairly easy.
 
bqmassey said:
I'm no expert, but I would think that since the winds are reported in relation to a fixed point on the ground, that they would account for any effects of the ground slipping by the atmosphere.

If they have accurate wind reports and can accurately predict the vertical velocities during each stage of the ascent and descent, calculating where to release to achieve a particular landing point would be fairly easy.
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Don't forget that the ground and the atmosphere are all traveling at a pretty good clip "spinward" to begin with (except very close to the poles). Wind is not the effect of the earth spinning while the air just sits there. If it were, we'd be dealing with supersonic surface winds on a daily basis.
 
Terry said:
The other day a guy parachuted from 106,000 feet.
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No, he did it from 96,600. He plans higher jumps (and record breaking) later in the year, he plans to jump from 125,000 at some point.

Terry said:
Yes, Kittinger's record was 96,000 I think.
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No, Kittinger's record jump was from 102,800.

Terry said:
Did he have to take the earth's rotation into consideration to configure his landing?
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No, Earth rotation is irrelevant.

Terry said:
I think it took him some 6 hours to get that high in his balloon.
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Took him 90 min.

BurtM said:
Also, what about winds aloft forecasts? The charts I've seen stop at 39,000 ft.
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Your support team, if they want to have accurate wind data, do their own wind measurement with some trial balloons. This guy has a massive support team, he is not calling FAA/NOAA for winds in the morning :wink2:
 
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Thanks for all the corrections. Would someone please answer the OP?
 
Terry said:
Thanks for all the corrections. Would someone please answer the OP?
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All his questions have been answered.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I777 using Tapatalk 2
 
Terry said:
If he went up in California did he come down in California?
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Actually the popular (hate to use word 'uneducated') thinking I guess would be that he jumped say in point X and came down to the West of this point due to Earth's rotation. Right? Actually because of Earth's rotation he would land slightly to the East of his original jump point, and the law of Physics that you want to use to calculate this displacement is called preservation of angular momentum. If you did all the calculations and neglected air drag for maximum deflection you would get some distance - say a few yards, perhaps a dozen or so. It is a minimal effect and completely dwarfed by all the winds that he would surely encounter, etc.
 
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Actually the popular (hate to use word 'uneducated') thinking I guess would be that he jumped say in point X and came down to the West of this point due to Earth's rotation. Right?
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No, because winds aloft generally move east to west, some of them at a very high speed. At the time of his departure from the balloon, he may have been geostationary, but most likely was still traveling with the winds aloft, with a downwind ground track. His travel would depend on the winds through which he descended. Jumping in the vicinity of a jet stream, for example, imparts a temporary horizontal motion that can be up to 200 knots.

The earth's rotation, insofar as figuring out where he will land, is relatively insigifnicant compared to the meaning of the winds aloft.
 
DouglasBader said:
No, because winds aloft generally move east to west, some of them at a very high speed.
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I was clearly making this statement referring to earth-rotation effect alone, ZERO wind. Popular thinking is that you are up there and Earth is running below you to the east. This way of thinking often shows up when discussing airplane travel.

DouglasBader said:
The earth's rotation, insofar as figuring out where he will land, is relatively insignificant compared to the meaning of the winds aloft.
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And this was my whole point, exactly.
 
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I was clearly making this statement referring to earth-rotation effect alone, ZERO wind. Popular thinking is that you are up there and Earth is running below you to the east.
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Ah, I thought your comments were grounded in reality.

Must not be too popular of thought; I've never heard of it.

How many people are entirely unaware of the jet stream or airflow aloft, or wind? Not too many. We breathe, you see, as living critters. Most people are aware of the atmosphere, as is anyone that watches the weather channel or the evening news.
 
I'll have to ask Rick at EOSS.org where he gets his high altitude wind data for his models he uses for the balloons.

He's gotten scary-accurate over the last decade or so in his landing predictions.

I remember back when there wasn't any GPS data on-board and we'd DF the packages over hundreds of miles. Even remember when one of the local pilots would assist from a rented 182.

Nowadays with Rick's predictions and GPS/APRS, there have been a number of landings where the darn ground chase team almost could have let the packages drop on the roof of the chase vehicle.
 
They are, by the way this very thread is proof of that.
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Really? Before, you said "Actually the popular (hate to use word 'uneducated') thinking I guess would be...," which per your present position might suggest that those in this thread are uneducated.

Your comments weren't grounded in reality. You were talking theoreticals that are only believed by the "uneducated" masses. I've never met such a person that might believe that, but apparently in the circles in which you run, you do. Got it.
 
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