How could Johnny Utah and Bodhi survive the skydiving jump in Point Break?

Authors

  • Katherine DAVIES University of Leicester

Keywords:

Film, Physics, Mechanics, Terminal velocity, Drag, Johnny Utah, Bodhi, Point Break

Abstract

The 1991 American crime thriller Point Break is famous for its action-packed adrenaline-filled scenes. It gives the famous scene where a mid-air fight between the two main characters causes the parachute to be pulled only 8 seconds before hitting the ground. This paper investigates how large the cross-sectional area of the parachute would have had to have been to slow them down to safe speed of 6 ms-1 in 8 seconds before hitting the ground. It results that the cross-sectional area of parachute would have to have been 59.62 m2 to ensure their safety.

References

Abrams, P. & Levy, R. (1991) Point Break. Largo Entertainment, Westwood California, Film, 122 minutes

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Rice University (2014). Drag Forces (PDF) OpenStax College. Available at: https://cnx.org/exports/be308439-f9b1-40e7-b0a6...pdf/drag-forces-8.pdf [Accessed 27th March 2018]

Woodford, C. (2018). How parachutes work | The science of air resistance. Explain that Stuff. Available at: http://www.explainthatstuff.com/how-parachutes-work.html [Accessed 6th March 2018]

Potvin, J. (n.d.). Calculating the descent rate of a round parachute. Pcprg.com. Available at: https://www.pcprg.com/rounddes.htm [Accessed 6th March 2018]

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Published

27.03.2018

How to Cite

DAVIES, K. (2018). How could Johnny Utah and Bodhi survive the skydiving jump in Point Break?. Journal of Interdisciplinary Science Topics, 7. Retrieved from https://journals.le.ac.uk/index.php/jist/article/view/2707

Issue

Vol. 7 (2018)

Section

Articles

License

This journal provides immediate open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge.  All content is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence (CC-BY 4.0).