Have you ever been plummeting toward Earth at terminal velocity and say to yourself 'I wish I had something to keep me busy right now...'

Sixteen people leap out of a plane at the sound of a whistle, just after a large weighted ball is released. There are two teams of eight, a ball, a ref, two goals (cones that fall point-downward and have some drag to make them fall slower and spin as they fall with a loop 3' in diameter attatched to each). They can be rigged with rc ripcord parachutes or be made cheaply and be disposable. Each player would have a headset for listening to the ref's calls.

In the few minutes that the divers have before they have to open their parachutes they play a game similar to english football with their hands. There would have to be a simple set of rules (I will not specify them because there can be several aerial games and their details would be trivial) in which goals would have to be scored. This wold be far more exciting than ground sports because of the height and the ability to navigate in three dimensions (vertically by making your body more or less aerodynamic).

Spectaters could spectate from the ground or from planes.
-- jellydoughnut, Jun 04 2006

there's a game called skyball played with a lead-filled tennis ball. Not sure of the rules.
-- pigtails_and_ponies, Jun 06 2006


I've heard of that and was kind of unsure of why the ball would be weighted. Does it increase the terminal velocity?
-- jellydoughnut, Jun 06 2006


maybe it would fall at the same speed without the lead (?), but you wouldn't be able to throw it. Even with that weight the horizontal movement is still pretty slow.
-- pigtails_and_ponies, Jun 06 2006


//maybe it would fall at the same speed without the lead (?), but you wouldn't be able to throw it. Even with that weight the horizontal movement is still pretty slow.// What???

It would not fall at the same speed without the lead... that thing about bodies of different weights falling at the same rate: it doesn't involve air resistance.

Drop a feather and a hammer together to see it in action.
-- zigness, Jun 07 2006


//soft with a brittle centre// Heh heh.

//lead filled tennis ball// In an unrelated incident, my brother once filled a tennis ball with lead. The best game, of course, was to practice handling it as if it was an ordinary tennis ball, then hand it to someone. Chortle. Some crazy musicians I lived with started writing a song about it; "I've got a lead filled tennis ball, I've got a ...". Never destined to be a hit.

Oh, right, the idea. Yeah, sure, I'd play. Would you get cheerleaders forming astonishing 3D displays on the sideplanes? (+)
-- spidermother, Jun 07 2006



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