Free Fall Essay

449 Words2 Pages
What is free fall jumping? free fall jumping is a sport in which participants jump or fall from aircraft at altitude. They can perform an assortment of aerial maneuvers before deploying a parachute to slow their descend, allowing them to come gently to rest on the Earth below. The sport is also known as parachuting, in a reference to that vital piece of safety equipment. People at different levels of physical fitness can participate in free fall jumoing, as long as they are ready for an adrenalin-packed sport which can be both terrifying and exhilarating. The roots of the sport are actually much older than many people realize. Several medieval inventors developed rudimentary equipment which could have potentially been used for free fall jupming activity, and in 1797, Andre Jacques Garnerin jumped from a hot air balloon with a parachute, marking the first incident of truly modernfree fall jumping. The sport was further refined throughout the 1800s, and many militaries adopted it in the 1900s. In the military, free fall jumping was originally intended to be a backup safety mechanism for airmen. If a plane became disabled during flight, the pilot could deploy a parachute to save his life. Intrepid pilots began to jump recreationally as well, and in many countries, further applications were considered. Many modern militaries use free fall jumping for troop deployment, for example. Wildfire fighters also jump to reach remote sites, so that they can be on the ground quickly. Near the surface of the Earth, an object in free fall in a vacuum will accelerate at approximately 9.8 m/s², independent of its mass. With air resistance acting upon an object that has been dropped, the object will eventually reach a terminal velocity, around 56 m/s (200 km/h or 120 mph) for a human body. Terminal velocity depends on many factors including mass, drag coefficient, and

More about Free Fall Essay

Open Document