Re: HAHO

["Gareth Livergood" <garethlivergood@xxxxxxxxx>]

> <snip>
>
> >    First, I am going to assume that you mean 30000 feet not 30
kilometers
>
> Nope, I am not that familiar with "feet" as a lenght measurement ;)
>
Sorry, you can put that up to me being a silly American :-)  30000 feet is
about 9.2km.

> >(30km is about 120000 ft., a guy jumped from a balloon near that
altitude,
> >but he was wearing the equivilant of a space suit and still the trip
nearly
> >killed him).  The temp at 30000 is around -40 to -60* F.
>
> How "much" ;) is that in degree celsius?

The F and C scales cross at -40*, so that would be -40*C to -52*C.  At 30km,
the temps would vary but be about that or colder, except at the extream
where you could cook in the sun.

>
> >   I don't know the
> >specifics of survival at those temps, however frostbite and worse are a
very
> >seriouse concern.  The water vapor in your lungs could freeze if
breathing
> >in that cold of air.  The tears could freeze, skin freezes near these
temps.
> >These temps can be encountered in the arctic and antarctic and sometimes
> >furthur south into southern Canada and the Dakotas during nasty winters.
> >Survival is tricky on the ground, at altitude, in a 120mph freefall.
>
> So some kind of insulating suit would be needed, with enough air to reach
a
> secure height.

You would want to make sure there was NO exposed skin, this would freeze
very quickly.  You would also need a pressure suit.  There were some
experiments done in the late '50's by the USAF, to see if pilots could
survive a bailout at extream altitudes.  They did three live jumps at about
25-35km, the guy rode a balloon up.  Here is a link to his bio. and an
article about the last jump.
http://www.balloonlife.com/publications/balloon_life/9510/balloonm.htm
http://www.afa.org/magazine/valor/0685valor.html
He holds several world records; longest freefall, highest parachute jump,
only human to break the sound barrier without an aircraft.
There is also an Australian that wants to break the records and jump from
40km.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/low/english/sci/tech/newsid_1203000/1203564.stm

Hope this helps.
>
> >     I don't know any specifics of the HAHO parachutes, except they would
be
> >the parafoil style and probably oversized, other than that I don't know.
>
> Ok...
>
> Arclight
>
>
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