Imagine you are taking a sky-diving lesson, and your instructor lets you dive alone this time. Both your parachutes don't work, either because you could not operate them properly due to lack of experience, or because they are actually faulty. Who knows? What do you do now?
Say your height above the ground satisfies the minimum requirement for achieving terminal velocity during free fall in earth's gravity, still leaving more than enough height for our little thought experiment. The moment you realize you are on your own without landing support, you open up your limbs to a suitable posture to achieve this terminal velocity with minimum time/distance loss. After you achieve terminal velocity, slowly bring your limbs to a position where you can maneuver your body to glide at this constant velocity. Position your body to glide in a forward direction so you can see where you are going. Stay in this position until you reach the ground. In my estimation, you will travel in a sort of parabolic path with this constant terminal velocity. As you get closer to the ground, you must assume the original "limbs-outstretched" position which brought you to zero acceleration while in the air. This will further retard you from the terminal velocity right before you land on the ground, bringing you to a speed close to running speed in the exemplary case, or to only where you break one or more limbs in the worst case.
In the exemplary case, you will land like a hawk or an eagle that grabs a rat from the ground, or if you are too afraid to even carry out this little thought experiment in reality, may God be merciful enough to let you take up a bird's body in your next life, to teach your young soul how to glide and land without killing yourself.
Say your height above the ground satisfies the minimum requirement for achieving terminal velocity during free fall in earth's gravity, still leaving more than enough height for our little thought experiment. The moment you realize you are on your own without landing support, you open up your limbs to a suitable posture to achieve this terminal velocity with minimum time/distance loss. After you achieve terminal velocity, slowly bring your limbs to a position where you can maneuver your body to glide at this constant velocity. Position your body to glide in a forward direction so you can see where you are going. Stay in this position until you reach the ground. In my estimation, you will travel in a sort of parabolic path with this constant terminal velocity. As you get closer to the ground, you must assume the original "limbs-outstretched" position which brought you to zero acceleration while in the air. This will further retard you from the terminal velocity right before you land on the ground, bringing you to a speed close to running speed in the exemplary case, or to only where you break one or more limbs in the worst case.
In the exemplary case, you will land like a hawk or an eagle that grabs a rat from the ground, or if you are too afraid to even carry out this little thought experiment in reality, may God be merciful enough to let you take up a bird's body in your next life, to teach your young soul how to glide and land without killing yourself.
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