iPhone 4 Survives 1,000ft Fall From Airplane

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Anyone else think it is funny that the glass on your iPhone breaks when it falls out of your hand but survives a 1,000 foot drop from an airplane? Thanks to badcaps for the link!

One week ago (on March 16), he stuck his body out of the open door to look for landmarks as the plane sped through the air at 130 knots (about 150 m.p.h.). As he did, the Velcro seal on his pocket flew open, and out popped his iPhone. Airman Walker could do nothing but watch it fall away from the plane; he assumed it was lost forever, not to mention destroyed by the fall.
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$20 says Griffin is going to have something about this on it's iPhone case's box when the next revision of the packaging comes out.
 
I would've jumped after it — that's an $800 phone, damn it!
 
Apple makes quality devices. My 3G has been going strong for 2 years after falling off a rollercoaster at 6 Flags. Just a few minor scratches
 
Not only was the iPhone undamaged, Airman Walker reports, it was in perfect working order -- "not a scratch on it, not even dirty."
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That's a load of bull.
 
So it landed on a soft patch of grass, dirt or sand? Not all that surprising.
 
someone calculate the distance it takes to reach terminal velocity and what is the terminal velocity.
 
I dropped mine about 3 feet onto concrete, unprotected twice. Other than a few nicks in the corners is works fine.
 
sounds like a load of crap to me, I bet Apple made up this story just to get some good publicity. They made it so ridiculously unbelieveable that no one else would try it. The only way I could see this being possible is if it landed in something super soft, but then again the same could be said about any phone (or any electronic device)
 
Ihaveworms said:
someone calculate the distance it takes to reach terminal velocity and what is the terminal velocity.
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That's dependent on what you're dropping, and you'd need all the of the data from the iPhone's size, weight and dimensions to the adjusted air friction coefficients on its surface(s) to even approximate terminal velocity. Doing a rough calculation, the phone was probably going about 170MPH (neglecting air friction and the x component of the traveling airplane) when it hit the ground.
 
Mr. K6 said:
That's dependent on what you're dropping, and you'd need all the of the data from the iPhone's size, weight and dimensions to the adjusted air friction coefficients on its surface(s) to even approximate terminal velocity. Doing a rough calculation, the phone was probably going about 170MPH (neglecting air friction and the x component of the traveling airplane) when it hit the ground.
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It landed in a "wooded area" so it may have gone through a forest canopy, understory, bushes, etc. all of which may have slowed it down before it hit the ground. The story doesn't say where it happened so it's hard to know what the vegetation might have been like.
 
Interesting. I know of four people personally who have busted glass front and back on their iPhone 4's from drops of a dizzying 18 - 36 inches.
 
Steve W said 12:50PM on 3-23-2011

After a certain height, it hits terminal velocity and then it doesn't matter how far it falls. What matters is what it lands on. Sounds like it fell through some brush and onto soft ground so that it decelerated enough to be undamaged on impact. Had it landed on concrete or asphalt it probably would've been a different story. Or in water. Pretty awesome though! Glad he got it back.
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this, and nothing else. the phone had a thick protective case and landed in bushes, nothing impressive but interesting to read;)
 
Not that surprising. Apply uniform gravitational field to an iphone and the impact isn't that great, especially if it landed somewhere soft.

*Adjusts taped-up glasses and sniffles*
 
Mr. K6 said:
That's dependent on what you're dropping, and you'd need all the of the data from the iPhone's size, weight and dimensions to the adjusted air friction coefficients on its surface(s) to even approximate terminal velocity. Doing a rough calculation, the phone was probably going about 170MPH (neglecting air friction and the x component of the traveling airplane) when it hit the ground.
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Drag is a HUGE part of the equation, the speed of the aircraft is negligible. Wind resistance will limit the the overall speed of the object, despite any linear component.

Playing with the tool here: http://www.calctool.org/CALC/eng/aerospace/terminal I get terminal velocities between 25 and 88 mph, depending on if it falls face first or edge on. The iPhone doesn't have any aerodynamic features or slipstreaming so it would tumble and fall at a speed somewhere between the two figures.

I also used the drag coefficient of a brick, cuz, well, look at it. :p
 
Decibel said:
I get terminal velocities between 25 and 88 mph, depending on if it falls face first or edge on.
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Still, isn't say 50 mph pretty equivilent to someone pitching a baseball as hard as they can against a wall, except replace baseball with iPhone and someone with a causal baseball player? I can't see someone throwng an iPhone as hard as they can against a wall and there being not even a scratch.

Someone made reference to dropping a phone 3 feet without it getting damaged however 1000 feet versus 3 feet is entirely different. Even if the impact surface changes, there's going to be a lot more velocity and thus force at 1000 feet. Remember it's mv^2 were looking at so even a small change in the final velocity greatly increases how hard its hitting the ground.

Something about this reeks of fake. Especially the part about how his phone didn't have a single spec of dust or dirt on it. The part that sounds fakest to me is .... "he stuck his body out of the open door to look for landmarks as the plane sped through the air at 130 knots (about 150 m.p.h.)".

Call me crazy, but I wouldn't open my car door while travelling down a highway at 150 m.p.h and try to look to see if there's any landmarks nearby. Has anyone ever stuck their hand outside a window and felt the air-resistance against your arm while driving at even 75 mph? Let alone twice that at 150 mph. Seems this guy could have been thrown out of the airplane entirely while 'looking for landmarks'?

There's a reason why when flying, you traditionally don't open the doors in planes or so I thought although I suppose the counter-argument to this would be helichopters/choppers with the door open. In action movies, although hardly a good measure for what would happen in real life, people never seem to fall out.
 
Decibel said:
Drag is a HUGE part of the equation, the speed of the aircraft is negligible. Wind resistance will limit the the overall speed of the object, despite any linear component.

Playing with the tool here: http://www.calctool.org/CALC/eng/aerospace/terminal I get terminal velocities between 25 and 88 mph, depending on if it falls face first or edge on. The iPhone doesn't have any aerodynamic features or slipstreaming so it would tumble and fall at a speed somewhere between the two figures.

I also used the drag coefficient of a brick, cuz, well, look at it. :p
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Uh. What? A brick? Really? And I have no idea how you got these numbers.

4.8 ounces
Face down: 10.395 in2
Length down: 1.665 in2
Width down: 0.8547 in2
Cd = 0.3 (let's face it...the thing is pretty smooth.)

And I get:

Face down: 66 mph
Length down: 166 mph
Width down: 232 mph

Granted, it will be tumbling, but a brick? I think not. Probably somewhere around 125 mph is my best guess.
 
Glad to hear it's so durable! Hopefully when the iPhone 5 comes, it will be able to survive a much higher drop so I can take it to the ISS with me without fear of breakage if it comes out of my pocket.
 
WBurchnall said:
Still, isn't say 50 mph pretty equivilent to someone pitching a baseball as hard as they can against a wall, except replace baseball with iPhone and someone with a causal baseball player? I can't see someone throwng an iPhone as hard as they can against a wall and there being not even a scratch.
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Okay.. Well, try to see someone throwing an iPhone with a thick case as hard as they can into vegetation. I don't think this phone landed on a wall.
 
Hmm..I should post the video my camcorder shot when my skydiving helmet came off under canopy. Fell 2000 feet recording the whole way. Went into a flat spin on it's side and eventually the spin got fast enough to cause the camera to stop recording about 2 seconds before impact. And no, it did not work again. In fact, the 35mm camera mounted on the front of the helmet was so deformed by the deceleration that the back wouldn't close properly (lens was undamaged though as were the lenses and filters on the camcorder). The whole of the body of the minolta was subtly warped...just a little...but all over.
 
It's funny. I've dropped my case-less iphone 4 down a flight of 16 1' concrete stairs to no ill effect. I just about had a heart attack though.

Come to think of it, years ago, I dropped my first macbook pro down a similar flight of stairs to no ill effect either.
 
LockeOak said:
It landed in a "wooded area" so it may have gone through a forest canopy, understory, bushes, etc. all of which may have slowed it down before it hit the ground. The story doesn't say where it happened so it's hard to know what the vegetation might have been like.
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Yup. If it had landed directly on a concrete or other hard surface it would have shattered into a thousand pieces. Still pretty cool that it was found and found in perfect condition.
 
Like cats falling out of sky scraper windows, between the second and sixth floor they are twice as likely to die as a fall from above the 7th floor.

Feline Pesematology- is the name given to the relatively obscure study of the science of falling cats.

When the height each cat fell was taken into account, it was found that only about 5% of the cats who fell 7 to 32 stories died, while about 10% of the cats who fell from 2 to 6 stories died.
 
Achron said:
Uh. What? A brick? Really? And I have no idea how you got these numbers.

4.8 ounces
Face down: 10.395 in2
Length down: 1.665 in2
Width down: 0.8547 in2
Cd = 0.3 (let's face it...the thing is pretty smooth.)

And I get:

Face down: 66 mph
Length down: 166 mph
Width down: 232 mph

Granted, it will be tumbling, but a brick? I think not. Probably somewhere around 125 mph is my best guess.
Click to expand...

from the height it fell it likely tumbled like a coin falling in a swimming pool. thus reducing it's maximum speed.

Had it been an iPhone 3G it likely would have taken flight...
 
Maybe it took out a few birds and some other wildlife on the way down which slowed it down enough to avoid major damage.
 
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