They say falling onto water from high altitude is like hitting concrete, that is, unless you have this pointy hat, that fits your shoes perfectly, to create a much sharper end to pierce through water, thus, softening the collision .

A fall from an airplane to water with nothing but a small metal hat should be survivable.

Related to this, I was also wondering, if this would work out for someone falling onto ground, if we used a very long pointy end, made of a strong material like uranium to pierce through soil decelerating body gradually rather than instantaneously... but that wouldn't work as a hat, for sure.
-- Mindey, Feb 02 2022

100 feet platform shoes 100_20feet_20platform_20shoes
All made up [DenholmRicshaw, Feb 02 2022]

A human pile driver. What could possibly go wrong? Perfect halfbaked proposal. Snack on this [+]
-- xenzag, Feb 02 2022


Better to fall feet first I would of thought
-- pocmloc, Feb 02 2022


Check out 100 feet platform shoes - see link

It has back of the envelope calculations and everything
-- DenholmRicshaw, Feb 02 2022


+ quite halfbaked, but why limit it to a hat? All pointy solutions should be pointy hat, pointy shoes, pointy gloves…to work no matter what direction your body is falling!
-- xandram, Feb 02 2022


I'm sure we've done "use pointy thing into water instead of parachute" before, but I can't find it. I might try looking...
-- neutrinos_shadow, Feb 02 2022


// Pointy shoes, pointy gloves…to work no matter what direction your body is falling! //

Principle of pointyness is worth exploring, yes.

This idea is about practicality of taking that hat to an airplane, and, I guess, protecting the upper body. Saying "pointy gloves or shoes" doesn't take care of one's groin - you've got to explain the mechanism of how those shoes or gloves would transform to protect the rest of the body, or it's magic.

There is one negative effect that I'm worried though -- something that point would make you pick up larger terminal velocity, that would work against us.
-- Mindey, Feb 03 2022


Would the Prussian pointy hats of WW1 work, or would they be "too pointy"?
-- 4and20, Feb 03 2022


So we're proposing to cross a pickelhaube with a cricket box, in the hope of surviving falls from a height?

If we're worried about terminal velocity, we might want to commit to landing on one extremity in particular, put the spike on that one, and then wear flamboyant raupenhelms on all the others.
-- pertinax, Feb 07 2022



random, halfbakery