A1 7 The Flying Umbrella

Abstract

The umbrella is a commonly used tool to avoid rain. However, in media, they are often used to slow descent. We consider a situation where a person is on top of a very tall tower, and as there is a fire, he has to jump off the tower. We calculate that the umbrella must have a diameter of at least 4 m to survive with a safe landing velocity of 5 m s^-1.