4 & 1/2 minutes in zero g

© Stephen Boxall - steveboxall.com
41/2 minutes in free fall,
AKA zero-G
Hi. Maybe you already hate me for seeing Atlantis launch in STS135, but now I’ll tell you about a ﬂight I did in zero g, invited by Vodafone
so you’ll really hate me afterwards.

I flew with ZeroG Corp, a US based company which uses a Boeing 727 airliner, suitably modified to withstand the stresses of this kind of
flights.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Physicist_Stephen_Hawking_in_Zero_Gravity_NASA.jpg - CC NASA

You have to ﬁll in some paperwork about your health, but if this guy, which I’m pretty sure you all know, did it, you can do it. Oh, and you
also have to say it’s OK if you die.

Apart from that, the FAA sees these flights as commercial ones so you get all the amenities like security briefings, a flight attendant that
yells at you with a bullhorn, etc.

The main differences are that most of the seats in the plane are gone, that the oxygen masks are under the seats, and that the cabin is
mostly covered with soft mats.

File:Parabolic flight.png - GNU GPL by Dr. Wessmann

So, after taking off like any other commercial flight the plane flies to a reserved zone in the airspace where it can perform its tricks
without colliding with anyone which is kind of a good idea.

File:Parabolic ﬂight.png - GNU GPL by Dr. Wessmann

This means pointing the nose down, accelerating, and then pulling up and leveling the plane when it slows down. Then you’re in free fall for
25 to 30 seconds. Repeat this x15 times.

One of the ﬁrst things you experience is that mass doesn’t equal weight, so on your ﬁrst tries to get up you end up scrunched against the
ceiling. It’s a good thing…

…the cabin is padded. It also means that you are «stronger», like I found out when someone was falling on top of me. I tried to push him
a bit but instead I sent him ﬂying away.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=QF2w2Dx_QMs

You also notice quite soon that in zero g (or free fall) things like upside and down cease to have any meaning.You can walk or crawl on
the ceiling with no problem.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=QF2w2Dx_QMs

There’s a video tour of the ISS by André Kuipers in Youtube where he explains this in node 3, where depending on your activity down can
be any of at least 3 different directions.

It is also extremely hard to do many things in free fall, as André says in that video. For example, the coaches on the ﬂight set some water
and M&M’s ﬂoating in front of us

…and told us to catch them. But it’s nearly impossible unless you can lean on something. On Earth you unconsciously lean forward;
ﬂoating in zero g you can’t.

You also realize that Sir Isaac Newton was right when he said in his ﬁrst law of motion that if an object experiences no net force, then its
velocity is constant.

When zero g begins, if you don’t push against the ﬂoor, you don’t start ﬂoating spontaneously. Forget what you’ve seen in the movies, they
mostly got it wrong.

The ﬂight, at least to me, was thorougly enjoyable, and I didn’t feel sick at all, even thoug someone did –that’s the circle you see on our
route while they cleared the mess.

Unfortunately it is quite expensive at something like 4 tousand dollars plus getting there, lodging and so on, but if I ever win a lottery I’ll
give it another try.

© Red Bull Media
Red Bull Media Flight: Quince minutos en un Extra 300L

On the other side of the scale is an aerobatic ﬂight I took in a Red Bull plane.You also have to say that it’s OK if you die, and you get a
security brieﬁng about using a parachute.

© Red Bull Media
Red Bull Media Flight: Quince minutos en un Extra 300L

But with loops, barrels, turns of up to 7g, etc, it’s much harder than a zero g ﬂight and it’s not unheard of of passengers asking to cut it
short and/or puking, which fortunately I didn’t.

@wicho

You can’t pay to ﬂy with Red Bull, but you can book a ride in a ﬁghter plane with a few companies worldwide… If you have the money.

So… Do you already hate me?

4 & 1/2 minutes in zero g

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4 & 1/2 minutes in zero g