The Physical Science of Skydiving



The Physical Science of Skydiving

Introduction

Skydiving which is also known as parachuting, is the action and adventurous sport in which a volunteer exit takes place from an aircraft for returning back to earth with gravity aid with the help of parachute for slowing down throughout the last of the safe descent of earth. This action may or may not comprise of a specific amount of free fall, but a moment in which the parachute has not been set out and the body accelerates gradually to terminal velocity. In this paper, a discussion will be conducted on the physical science of the skydiving.

Discussion

Skydiving is performed as a competitive sport and a recreational activity, as well as it fulfill the deployment of the Airborne forces' military personnel and rarely forest firefighters. When a parachute opens as, that will be completely inflated by 2,600 feet or 800 meters, (BBC News, 2009) and then the skydiver can control the speed and direction with toggles on the steering lines' ends that are linked to the parachute's trailing edges, and can intend for a safe landing and eventually arrive to a moderately tender stop. All the contemporary sport parachutes have 'ram-air' wings that are self-inflating and assist in controlling the direction and speed as per the linked paragliders. Purists in every sport would signify that paragliders have highly superior range and lift, but that parachutes are specially designed for absorbing the stresses of the consumption at terminal velocity. Through self-managing the body shape in free-fall, a skydiver can be able of generating turns, forwarding motion, back warding motion, and even though lifting (Westman, Rosen, Berggren, & Bjornstig, 2008).

The resistance in the air increases as the speed of the person increases, so when a person initially starts dropping and is moving gradually, the force of gravity is more powerful as compare to the resistance in air and the person speeds up, accelerating towards the earth (Free Fall Research, 2001). Thus, the faster a person goes, the powerful the resistance of air is and so finally the person is moving very fast that the resistance of air is equivalent to the force of gravity and the person does not accelerate any further. The person gets in touch with the terminal velocity for maintaining his or her existing position of body (Barlow, Niemirska, Gandhi & Leblanc, 1983).

However, the question that raises here is that why does the position of the body come into it? (Joseph, 2004). As, the resistance of the air also relies on the shape of any object and as a consequence by tucking in the legs and arms, the person can attain a relatively speedy terminal velocity as compare to the legs and arms of a person that are spread out. Although, the skydivers do not need to splay their legs and arms for slowing down if they were frightened of higher speeds and even they must not choose this sport then. Such persons, who go for skydiving, are trying for ...