Lt. Charlie William of the British Army survived a 3500 foot fall with minimal damage to his person after his parachute rigging tangled upon exit from the airplane during training over Kenya.
He broke through a corrugated iron roof and gave some Kenyans a bit of a start. I have heard of dropping in for tea unexpectedly, but Charlie seems to have taken it a bit farther than most.
It does not appear to have been reported whether the home owners supplied their guest with a hot cuppa as he awaited assistance.
An LT, eh? Just goes to prove, no brain, no pain.
We all know of the brits’ world-famouse tendancy to fall for teatime, but to vandalize a house? :p A real breakthrough story, to say the least. Glad to hear he had a groundswell of support from the locals in spite of crashing their party.
Better than raining cats and dogs I suppose…
There are lots of stories of airmen falling up to 20,000 feet without a parachute and surviving.
Next week’s Radio Times features the grandson of one of them who is training to be rear gunner in a crew made up of aircrew’s grandchildren.
I think the record is about 53,000′ (Soviet jet fighter pilot, IIRC).
The actual height doesn’t matter too much, since once the body reaches terminal velocity at about 120mph (assuming a more or less spread-eagled attitude) it won’t go any faster however high you drop it from. Without air resistance, you’d reach that speed in about 600′, with air resistance then well under 2,000′
In this respect, it doesn’t matter if you fall from 3,500′ or 35,000′, the end result will be the same.
EG