GoPro Falls 12,500 ft. & Lands Unharmed

[ricki]

From Youtube.com:

" Published on Sep 10, 2012 by martialart23

bumped my head on the door frame on exit unclasping the latch on the box. The camera popped out on exit at 12.500 and fell straight down onto the landing area at the DZ and was recovered by a fellow skydiver. It even caught our landings. Not one scratch on the body or lens. Still can't believe that I got it back and that it is totally fine. A buddy the same day who is one of our camera flyers had the same thing happen but with his SLR....not the same result. I'm definitely a gopro fan for life these little guys are bomb proof"



The GoPro camera steps out of the housing for a jump of its own.


I had heard of other cases of GoPros being dropped from around this altitude which still continued to function. This was the first one that I could find a video for however. In this instance, the unprotected camera WITHOUT the impact housing fell 12,500 ft. striking grass. It captured the whole thing on video including the landing of the sky divers.

Looks like terminal velocity for a GoPro is a good deal slower than for humans in free fall. Working through things, the camera fell out at about 12,500 ft. from time of release at 33 seconds to time of impact at about 2:35 minutes. It is hard to tell without capturing and slowing the video down to figure out the exact time of impact. It bounced and tumbled along the ground for a time. Anyway, that works out to roughly 12,500 ft. in 122 seconds for an average speed of 70 mph. The speed in a vacuum might be closer to double that but as you can see in the video is tumbles throughout creating a lot of drag.

So, an unhoused camera strikes at something likely well in excess of 70 mph into grass and continues to work. I have dropped digital cameras in the best portable bags that I could find 2 ft. on to soft surfaces and damaged them requiring a factory repair more than once.

For a low cost tiny camera with excellent image quality, this astounding durability is an great plus!

[ricki]

Thanks to the folks at GoPro I just learned the locations of three other free falling camera video clips. The camera survived in
all the cases and continued to video.

See below:



This camera fell about 11,000 ft. in for an average speed of 72 mph not too far off the 70 mph calculated for the unhoused camera.



This camera fell about 3000 ft. to strike grass just missing a fence. This housed camera had an unusual flat spin to earth unlike
the "normal" tumbling plunge exhibited by the other cameras.



This camera fellow 1500 m or about 5000 ft. to plop into a lake. It stayed there for seven days and was eventually recovered. Not
only did it record the first part of the jump, it also captured some real curious fish.


Neil Hutchinson told me about a case of a ski divers helmet following off and hitting a roadway 13,000 ft. below while still shooting video. I have yet to able to find that clip. I suspect there have still be others.

This camera beats a Timex by a couple of miles (in free fall) in impact resistance!

...

oh, as an afterthought, here's a clip without parachutes, spinning landscape on angel dust or other dramatic violence. It is more of a
combination of Mad Max in the barren wastes of the outback meets zombie hula girls with power pasties, or something. PG-13 and
protect your eyes from the moving pointy bits.




.