Posted on 10/12/2001 10:35:55 AM PDT by Asmodeus
Cute, but you may be onto something. How about huge airbags that are stored in tanker trucks and which could be deployed at the base of buildings spaced so as to provide maximum coverage. They may not help someone coming in at terminal velocity from the 110th story, but what have they got to lose?
I would say your friends company is definitely attempting to capitalize on the WTC disaster. "Executivechute" is a dead giveaway. Probably evacuation systems would be more effective, e.g. Cable brakes, rappeliers. Telecommuting is probably the best option, that's my plan.
I'm sure everyone can remember some image in the past of someone jumping from a burning building trying to get away from the fire. Once a building gets higher than the fire ladders, there is a chance of being trapped by a fire.
Given the advances in telecommunications, skyscrapers are becomming dinosaurs. There just aren't that many situations that require you to pack that many people into a one block square area.
..."Then the TCN executives took him to Atlanta, and set him on the Turner Towers and said, Throw yourself down from here and your employees, with their hands outstretched will ask for their paychecks, before the demons escort you to hell."
After a fire drill last month in which I learned that it takes more than five minutes to descend the one staircase in my office building from the sixth floor, I took a shopping trip to REI. I picked up a fifty meter hank of climbing rope, a kevlar rope guard, a harness, a carabiner and a figure eight for a little less than $200. It resides in a gym bag in the bottom of my filing cabinet.
Paranoia is just total awareness.
Semper Fidelis
Not just color. Being vainglorious, Trump will order an actual GOLD metal parachute, all 400lbs of it recquainting him, with alarming rapidity, with the firmament when he jumps with it.
Agree, but a smart, supposedly rich one.
However, remember what happended to the NYFD's chaplain? A parachute might give added lateral distance to "The Donald". Now just think if he floats 10 blocks or so and becomes falling "debris", say, on top of Chelsea Clinton.
Then where will you be? She will havd a real story to write about, not just "I was almost killed being 10 blocks from the WTC..."
The BASE jumper style chute is currently available, jump proven, and also has the ability of the jumper to hold the oversized pilot chute in their hand while exiting. They have the choice of holding said pilot chute closed while getting at least a little airspeed,given a little training, or tossing it free immediately and allowing it to deploy the main as soon as sufficient drag has been created.
Frankly I would like to try and use a little freefall (even 2 seconds, if sufficient height is available) to move away from the building prior to deployment. Yes, I do have training, and experience, but in an emergency, audacious action is better than nothing. Static lines could cause fouling and building contact depending upon the prevailing winds. A ballistic deployment system could fire the slug and the drogue back into the building leaving the jumper hung up with a fouled drogue, and costing the airspeed needed to deploy the main.
The idea has merit, but only if the chute is manually deployable with a BASE jumping configuration.
Keep the Faith for Freedom
MAY GOD PROTECT AND DEFEND THIS HONORABLE REPUBLIC
Greg
Greg
Double it for rappelling = 75 ft = 7 stories.
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