Airmen having fun with Zero Gravity on landing into Baghdad

Airmen have fun with the low gravity environment created when descending fast and low to a landing into Baghdad.
Ghostlysays...

Can anyone tell me what aircraft this is? Or anything else about what's going on here. The floor looks pretty level and I wouldn't have thought a winged aircraft could accelerate downward that fast unless it was in real trouble or steeply angled nose down. (I'm not calling fake I just want to know more).

deathcowsays...

We've done this in a Cessna, though you cannot float freely... but you can spin small objects freely. There is a clip on here of a dog floating around in a Cessna.

NetRunnersays...

>> ^Ghostly:
Can anyone tell me what aircraft this is? Or anything else about what's going on here. The floor looks pretty level and I wouldn't have thought a winged aircraft could accelerate downward that fast unless it was in real trouble or steeply angled nose down. (I'm not calling fake I just want to know more).


I don't know about the type of aircraft, but I'd imagine it's a pretty ordinary military cargo plane of some sort. Winged aircraft can definitely dive fast enough to make you feel weightless (free fall), though you'll want a good pilot if you're going to do it.

In this case, they're making a rapid descent to land in Baghdad. I didn't realize they did them so steep they'd get the free-fall effect, but it makes sense.

NASA sports a plane explicitly for this purpose. Stephen Hawking even tried it.

*spacy

Ghostlysays...

>> ^NetRunner:
Winged aircraft can definitely dive fast enough to make you feel weightless (free fall), though you'll want a good pilot if you're going to do it.


The thing that confused me is that this isn't zero-g, merely reduced g's, and the forces still acting on the people relative to the plane seemed to be directed straight towards the floor, since they can both stand perpendicular to the floor and jump on the spot. Where as I thought in a steep dive if they jumped they would float towards the tail of the plane, but I must be thinking about the forces all wrong.

cybrbeastsays...

When airplanes simulate zero G's the crafts themselves do not have to be falling down vertically, they just have to be in a freefall trajectory, like the trajectory of a cannonball. This means the zero gravity environment can actually start while the plane is still flying upwards.
For low gravity they just stay slightly above the freefall trajectory.

maatcsays...

>> ^Ghostly:
Can anyone tell me what aircraft this is? Or anything else about what's going on here. The floor looks pretty level and I wouldn't have thought a winged aircraft could accelerate downward that fast unless it was in real trouble or steeply angled nose down. (I'm not calling fake I just want to know more).


Reason they do it is to avoid enemy fire I think.

Clip of a so called "corkscrew landing" into Baghdad international here:
http://www.videosift.com/video/Corkscrewing-into-Baghdad-International-Airport

Not sure it is the same thing though.

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