#Twilight zone nightmare at 20 000 feet how to#

I know these winds can peel pavement from the ground, but watching MacGyver as a kid has given me and unrealistic and largely untested faith in duct tape.Ī python was found to have attached itself to the wing of plane that flew from northern Australia to Papua New Guinea and reached an altitude 30,000 feet. I can imagine if you just have magnetic boots and are standing, your body would be thrown backward from the force of the wind, and with your feet anchored, you’d probably break your spine, and other things.

Sher’s idea – perhaps some very strong magnets, but I doubt you’d be able to move about freely like the gremlin does.

#Twilight zone nightmare at 20 000 feet how to#

How WOULD one stay on the wing of a plane, given that he or she had figured out how to stay alive (likely in a spacesuit)? I don’t remember hearing about this, but it was in January of this year, in Barnwell State Park, which is in Barnwell County, South Carolina. Trees can be uprooted, small debris can be weaponized, train boxcars may overturn, roofs may abandon their frames, so it’s no joke.

To be fair, this was an EF-2 tornado, so wind speeds were between 111 and 135 miles per hour, or 178 to 217 km/h, which is significant. On a slightly unrelated note, I found a news story about some local kids who took to the trees during a tornado and held on until their grandparents found them, and then they were able to wait it out in the car. I know I said I wasn’t using information specific to planes available in 1963, but just to highlight the difference, a DC-7, built from 1953 to 1958, had a cruise speed of around 350 mph or 563 km/h, while a Boeing 747 (in production seince 1963) has a cruise speed of around 560 mph, or 900 km/h. I didn’t actually find this stated explicitly anywhere, but I extrapolated from an XKCD article in which the author states that humans can survive 500 mph winds, but winds at those speeds are strong enough to peel pavement back from the road and that volcanic eruptions can blast outward around 700 mph, which doesn’t seem terribly different from 500 mph, considering a 120 mph updraft can lift you up and carry you away. You would be ripped off the plane and go tumbling toward the surface of the Earth and certain death. With the wind chill traveling at around 550 mph and cruising 30-35,000 feet, you would experience 182 below (in Farenheit). That’s taking into account altitude let’s go further and factor in velocity as well. The temperature at 30-40,000 feet could hit 48 degrees below (in Fahrenheit 44 below in Celsius) or lower. So what would happen if you tried to hitch a ride on the wing of a plane because you really miss your family that lives far away but you can’t afford the exorbitant airfare? (not specific to a 1963 aircraft)Īt 35,000 feet, you only have about one quarter of the air that’s available to your poor lungs at sea level, which is a more reasonable altitude for humans.īecause the atmospheric pressure would cause the air (a gas) inside the lungs to expand inside them very quickly and forcefully. Also, incidents where the person survived reported a short time of exposure. Cases reported of people being outside the cabin area of a plane (ie – in the wing storage, on the wing, hanging out of a door, in the landing gear) well below cruising altitude (this is a critical point), consistently report frostbite as a consequence. Meanwhile, Bob sees a threat that no one else does, one that’s trying to dismantle this container that’s keeping him safe while he’s hurtling through the air. The other passengers are calmly sitting, biding their time for the duration of the flight. We have people, all in the same place, doing the same thing, receiving the same stimuli, but one person is having a vastly different experience from the others. The atmosphere or mood is very intimate – the plane feels like a microcosm of mental illness in society. This episode would not be as striking if Bob Wilson had not just had a nervous breakdown. Nightmare at 20,000 Feet – Aired October 1963