Trump Wants Parachute

The Sun ^ | 12 October 2001

[no-s]

I read the marketing pep talk at their site.

Honestly, it's easier to learn how to use a descender safely than it is to jump off a building with a parachute. Most tall buildings are surrounded by other tall buildings making landing extremely dicey with no training.

An actual executive is more concerned about getting employees out than saving themselves. Cable descenders would probably do the trick. This is giving me an idea for retrofitting tall buildings with evac systems.

[no-s]

Excellent plan. Can it work from 50 stories? 110 stories? Certainly the parachute schemes are not going to be effective from below 20 stories or so.

My experience with descending a rope is one 200' drop. But I was with a group of scouts, 10-14 years. If fat 40-year olds and 10-year old boys can do it without serious training, certainly average office workers can handle it.

[Uncle Sham]

"He suggested ropes and abseiling equipment might be a better choice."

Ropes would burn in a fire. My suggestion would be to have heavy-duty chains which could be dropped from the roof or at intermediate elevations along the sides of the building. Someone could then utilize a clamp-like device which they could attach to the chain that would allow them to slide down at an acceptable speed. If this had been available at the WTC, those who had been trapped above the fires could have used chains on the non-fire side to reach floors down below.

[surrey]

My youngest son works in the Prudential Tower in Boston. He's really thought about buying a verrrrry long rope. He's not high enough to have a parachute do him any good.

[CW Soldier]

Ropes might burn up, but a cable, dropped from the roof and secured by fire/rescure workers below, could provide a "zip line" escape route for at least some people.

I've also seen emergency evac systems that were essentially an elastic sleeve/tube. You jump in the top, which looks like a giant funnel, then it guides you into the sleeve, which looks like an oversize sausage casing. The momentum of your descent is distributed against the walls of the sleeve as friction as you descend. You have some degree of control in your descent by pushing your arms out, etc. The large surface area and relatively slow speed keep you from getting friction burn. Not sure how that would work from extremely high altitudes, like the Twin Towers, but it could speed things up at the 20-30 story altitude, I'd bet.

CW