At what point is it too late to let go of a balloon?
If you are holding onto a very, very large helium filled balloon & it was slowly taking you skyward, at what point is it not too late to let go & still successfully land without ending up being buried in 3 (small) separate caskets?
My logic—- As the balloon slowly lifts your heels & then toes up off the ground, you feel like maybe you have just a few more moments of floating bliss. But then reality kicks in…nerves are firing on all cylinders. You hesitate to let go when you are 10 feet off the ground. You think, maybe a calm downward wind could push me a little closer & I’ll definitely let go. That calm wind never shows up, neither does an African termite mound or grassy knoll. Your brain flip-flops. The longer you hesitate, the higher you go. You’re stuck on that balloon until you let go.
At what height do you close your eyes, say a prayer to whomever/whatever you believe in & finally say to yourself, ‘I’m letting go!”
-Waiting for a large body of water is cheating, along with waiting until you’re at skyscraper rooftop height. For scenario sake, it will always be same level ground (no canyons, no mountains) with no water.
The highest point I think I would let go at, would be around 70 feet. I’ll probably be shopping around for custom rims for my new hoverround afterwards, but I think I could handle 70 feet.
What about you guys?
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You think you could survive a 70 foot fall? That’s around a 6.5 story building.
I’d let go when I thought I couldn’t control the situation which would be as soon as the balloon took me 1 inch off the ground.
I’d probably let go as soon as I realized I was being lifted. If I was being lifted, it would be abundantly clear to me that nature (is that nature?) was more powerful than me at the moment, and I wouldn’t wait around to see if I could turn the tables.
@Captain_Fantasy Article I found… “In 1972, Vesna Vulovic, a cabin attendant, survived a 10,160m fall when the DC-9 she was in exploded” I think I could handle 70 feet. I guess my real question was, common sense obviously kicks in & I actually would let go at 1 inch as well, but the highest point in which I would still let go, is about 70 feet.
I wouldn’t dare go higher than the typical electric wires/ telephone pole. Even then I would expect a grave injury such as broken bones, but not death; I probably would let go as soon as I was being lifted but if I had some delayed response to a gust of wind, I wouldn’t let it go higher than that.
oh, about 7 inches for me…...
Seventy feet? You have to be kidding me. I wouldn’t even jump off the roof of my one-story house if I could avoid it. That’s about twelve feet.
If I were still holding onto the balloon after twenty feet or so, then I’d be trying to climb the rope to make a small hole in the fabric to start a descent… and otherwise not letting go for my life.
Granted at least one person survived then.
I’m pretty sure that most people who fall 70 feet of freefall aren’t so lucky.
Also, how would you know how far 70 feet was?
@Captain_Fantasy, there is a roller coaster that I have been on hundreds of times in my local theme park with an 80 foot drop. I visually take 10 feet off of that. :)
One storey is definitely as far as I’d go, I need my legs to work. But though it’s not included in your hypothetical situation, I’d probably grab onto a light post with my free hand and practise flying.
The record for surviving free-fall is something like 33,000 feet, and that’s if you’re in a significant amount of wreckage.
The record for surviving plain ol’ free-fall is closer to 18,000 feet.
The more of these stats that you read, the more falling out of a plane looks like an acceptable alternative to airports. o_o
When you’re rapidly approaching a twister.Alternatively, when the clown you stole it from bears down on you naked wearing nothing but a hard on & a wry smile.
@XOIIO ahem to you too. In British English, ‘storey’ refers to the floors in a building and ‘story’ refers to what you read to your kids at bedtime; ‘practice’ is strictly a noun and ‘practise’ is the verb. Please know what you’re talking about before you correct me.
@iphigeneia Can I just say, bravo to you. Now that’s the kind of fight I love to watch. Who cares if you can throw a hard left, a grammatical jab to the brain is more painful. Love it!
@iphigeneia I correct grammar based on what I know, and if you come from a country where the grammar is different, you are auitomatically exepmt from my corrections. If you like I could email your the contract.
@XOIIO, a quick (on a Mac) right click on any word will give you the definition. I think before you start correcting grammar, maybe look up the word first (takes less than a few seconds). That way we could have avoided this entire mess.
@XOIIO haha thanks, I’ll just take your word for it re: the contract thing. We all make mistakes from time to time.
@rpmpseudonym Really? That’s a neat feature that PC’s don’t have. I honestly dont think it is a mess.
BUT IT CAN BE ONE!!!
LOL JK
lol. Maybe there is a plug-in for PC’s somewhere? Because really, all the Mac is doing is using its built in dictionary, so when I right click a word, right there is ‘definition’, when clicked, a very small, pop-up window appears, showing the definition. Don’t think it could be that hard to replicate on a PC. It’s a wonderful feature. Couldn’t live without it.
By five or six feet, I’m definitely letting go, likely several feet before that. If I can get a good forward roll going then, if forced, I think I can manage 10 feet. After that visions of dislocated ankles, shattered femurs, broken hips, compound leg fractures, crushed pelvises become all too clear for my taste, regardless of their actual likelihood of occurring.
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