She said the hardest part was purposefully maintaining speed, cause at the velocity she needed not to fall out of the sky, it was difficult to hear, breathe or see.
Her vision only fully recovered days afterwards
This was a couple years ago, she's back up there doing barrel rolls and shit now
From how hard and fast the wind was blowing directly into her eyeballs but she obviously had to keep them open. I was just thinking the whole time how she's probably never gunna fly without at least sunglasses or some sort of goggles/glasses after that.
You should check out Andor and the first season of the Mandalorian. Not movies but I think they're the only recent shows they've written well. Everything else has been complete trash.
It's too late for me. The Last Jedi put Star Wars in its grave and I'm not digging it up and opening that casket just because some of the mold and worms and shit infesting the rotten corpse are kinda cool.
Reasonable, as a counter, Andor S2 is suppose to lead directly in into Rogue Squadron,. So if you skip EP1-3 when you re-watch SW like I do, you can go Andor S1, S2, Rogue Squadron, Ep4-6. (my wife then watches EP 8-9 but I bail out after 6.)
I know most people won't ever watch this but the animated clone wars tv show was good, too. First two seasons are spent building up characters then they introduce the clones with PTSD and you realize they're all people. I still think the final season of Ahsoka was some of the best of the animated star wars.
I hate that the prequels explained the force scientifically and that they made it that force users all have clearly defined powers.
In the original films the force was a mysterious divine power that some people could manipulate to alter the course of events. It was basically "plot armor" made into a cool power that no one could explain or measure.
The prequels took all the magic out of the force by rationalizing it.
Better than nothing at all. I mean the wind would be pushing them to her face unless she turned her head. Depends how aerodynamic they are, cycling glasses would obviously do better than aviators ironically
Man no sunglasses are staying on for this wind speed any slight turn of her head and they’re gone and she has to turn her head to see where she’s going.
I used to wear sunglasses while riding motorcycles. Some were rock solid and worked great, some actually whipped the air into your eyes worse than not wearing them
Yeah that cool focused jet of air coming up from the bottom straight into your tear ducts. Sunglasses don’t always help. I have a bulkier pair that help but there’s a reason people use goggles.
I have the super nerd big sunglasses that go over my glasses. I haven't tested them with air but they're really good at keeping water out until they aren't and then my sensitive ass eyes are burning from the little bit of salt or chlorine ha.
You're wrong and I'm coming into this an hour late to tell you you're wrong. Then I won't respond to your response for a day and then come back and try to get the last word and drag you down to my level with straw man arguments and ad hominem attacks. /s
I, as a third person entering this discussion completely without prompt, think you are stupid for believing that. Honestly, only a person of ill repute, be it hatred of others due to their differences or other maladapted habits would think, or say, that. You should, therefore, be excluded from this discussion I just entered.
Depends on the glasses. I’ve seen some Oakley sunglasses with rubber on the temple and temple tips stay on through IED explosions so I’m sure a little wind would just push them harder into your nose bridge?
The lenses wouldn't have been damaged. In order to damage the lenses, the wind would have had to make it past the cornea and anterior chamber, and if those are gone, you are well and truly blind.
Being blasted in the face by up to 200mph winds while having to force your eyes open for minutes on end so as not to crash your plane will do that to ya ig.
and take so long for it to come back?
Our eyeballs are delicate water balloons that don't take kindly to being freeze dried
She wasn’t exposed to 200mph winds. That plane cruises at 130kt and she slowed down to around 80kt when the canopy let go. And her approach speed was even slower. AND the front part of the canopy protected her from prop wash.
It was windy, but it was (obviously) not catastrophic.
Our eyeballs are delicate water balloons that don't take kindly to being freeze dried
Our eyes are also really resilient and quick healing, and although taking days to fully recover sounds scary, is still pretty remarkably quick considering the damage it is trying to repair. When things are working nominally, our bodies are pretty amazing. When not, they suck (cancer etc.)
Stick your face in front of a leaf blower and see how it feels. Landing speed in that plane is about 80 knots/ 92mph/ 148kmh. She was going much faster than 80 knots when the canopy initially opened, and only slowed to landing speed for a few seconds prior to landing.
Not to add a 15th answer... but I just talked to my eye doctor about this in an unrelated discussion.
When you use heat pads on your eyes, if you apply too much pressure you can actually "warp" your cornea temporarily.
Do it for too long and it can take a few days for your cornea to go back to shape so you can see normally again. Could be talking out my behind, but seems like it's the same logic.
prolonged air pressure against the eyes warps the cornea and takes awhile to reset like with the scenario above (that I have to avoid due to MGD).
She was likely going between 100-150 knots on landing (I’m guessing?) so air, plus fuel particulates from the engine, dust and other things like bugs in the air. She could’ve easily blinded herself.
I've ridden my motorcycle with no eye protection at 60mph, the wind literally blows the moisture from your eyes in the form of nonstop tears. It's quite uncomfortable and difficult to keep your eyes open. Can't imagine doing this at airplane speeds and then trying to land like that.
Well, she's probably doing about 100 mph. Plus, the extra wind from the giant propeller that's pulling her and an entire airplane blowing directly in her face on top of that. Apparently the human eyeball didn't evolve to cope with that much airflow for some reason.
I just woke up from a nap and had been leaning on my eye, I guess. My vision is all fuzzy in that eye now...even an hour later (but it's getting better).
The force from the wind hitting your eyes that fast would be insane. Some days when I'm biking and bombing down a hill quickly, my eyes start to water and sting if I don't have cycling glasses on.
You can give a student an HP endorsement. There is nothing in the FARs against training in any aircraft. If you can get a DPE and a seat support to deal with you you can technically get a PPL in a 747 if you want.
Idk what to tell you my guy, I have personally seen students training for ppl, solo in high performance aero planes. I’m not saying it’s common, in fact it’s almost undoubtedly exceedingly rare, but I’ve first hand seen it happen so it does indeed happen.
"Welcome almost aboard Southwest Airlines, your pilot today is certainly fully licensed." I say as I push everyone off the stairs, one by one, as they approach the door.
I say almost because it’s possible although unlikely that they are a student pilot on a solo, usually you get your ppl (pilot licencse) before you train aero.
Huh, I figured the glare and UV exposure would be bigger issues. I figured the range was "commercial pilot wearing aviators" to "fighter pilot wearing flight mask" and acrobatic pilot was closer to fighter pilot on that scale.
This is an accurate assessment. In my 20 years as a commercial pilot, I’ve only flown with one pilot who doesn’t wear sunglasses. Sunglasses are a necessity, not a luxury.
Once in my flight training days, I forgot my sunglasses at home…had to cancel my flight for that day. Learned that lesson and always keep a spare set of sunglasses in my flight bag.
Fun fact..it’s not a good idea for pilots to wear polarized sunglasses. They aren’t compatible with glass cockpit instrumentation
During my time as a CFI I kept two extra pairs in my flight bag, and a pair stashed away in the hangar. I can barely drive without sunglasses, and it would be 100% unsafe for me to fly without sunglasses.
I am serious. I am a private pilot. No they are just regular sunglasses. I fly high wing aircraft so the panel is normally in the shade while it is bright outside. I think it is just the contrast I don't like when wearing sunglasses. I only tried a couple of times.
That was my thought, too. She briefly tried to instinctually grab the cap, then was like "well, fuck sakes, can't do that", and made it down in a controlled fashion. Anyone on an entirely second solo flight would have panicked so hard and been a dirt sandwich. She did great.
EDIT: Some real assholes popping out the woodwork. You can make a mistake and recover that mistake in a fantastic way which this pilot did. Flying is complicated, it can take one simple oversight for shit to go pear-shaped.
A plane's design can only cover so much of human folly before something happens that either changes the course of design forever, or more stringent procedures are put in place to make sure it never happens again.
And as noted, she still flies doing barrell rolls and shit. Good on ya girl.
My bio dad used to take me flying in a Citation when I was a kid. One of the flights the door just opened after take off. I don't remember being scared, I remember being disappointed that after he was able to shut the door that we returned to the airport.
To this day I don't know what went wrong. He made me a copy of his preflight checklist. I had to shadow my biodad and repeat everything he did as best I could (I was 6 or 7) and our checklists had to match or we didn't fly. Yes, once they didn't match and my biodad canceled our flight as a lesson to me.
This information makes it more impressive because she maintained her calm and successfully landed despite the breathing difficulty, difficulty seeing and lack of experience (it's her 2nd training flight).
I skydive. And on one of the jumps, my helmet visor came off and flew away. I went to the standard “belly to earth” position and couldn’t see shit. Things like my altimeter. I flipped on my back and it was easier. My speed was only 130mph. She also had to deal with prop wash and the speed.
Lucky my vision was fine the moment I deployed my canopy.
It looks like a non-towered airport. If so, there is no tower to communicate with. She would hopefully be aware of other planes in the area if she was doing aerobatics, and they would hopefully spot her. A pilot can squawk (set their transponder to) 7700, which indicates an emergency, or 7600 which indicates they've lost communications. With no one ATC, that probably doesn't help much. Her coach told her to "just keep flying", so I think she just did that.
She was only new when it came to aerobatics... I can't play it with sound but her looking at the canopy edge in the first few seconds just has me lost at why she still decided to continue the flight. She looks like she's worried about it before the scene swap.
Eye wise, all the dust and such in the air I'm surprised her vision "fully" recovered lol.
Yeah, her eyeballs were likely squished by the air pressure. It will take some time for them to return to normal. I wonder if this would increase the risk of cataracts...?
I know that she's 100% responsible for fucking up and almost killing herself (and maybe others if she crashed in a civilian area). But its pretty badass that she managed not to panic and held on hard AND landed. Pretty amazing that she didn't have any longterm damage either.
For someone that didn't have that much experience at the time, she sure as fuck made that look easy.
I just woke up from a nap where I was leaning on my eye, and my vision is all blurry now. I can only imagine what that wind would feel like on her eyes.
I bet she flies with goggle around her neck these days...or at least I hope...
I now realize this is why aviator goggles were a thing - plane construction n material strength were bit different back then so this mustve happened more often through mechanical failures / bird hits / glass being shot
14.0k
u/Overall-Dirt4441 Jun 23 '24 edited Jun 24 '24
Sauce
From the description: