Dropping Cats
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I'd really like to know why that was significant either scientifically or militarily. Fun to watch though.
@Mik I agree. Fun to watch but common sense that the gravity is what tells their brain how to turn their body to land on its feet.
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Somewhere I read that it's safe to drop a cat from a tall building because
- Their righting reflex will get them in a feet-down position
- They achieve terminal velocity as a speed low enough to allow their feet and legs to absorb the impact. They splay their bodies open to achieve a parachute-like effect which slows them down.
The number of injuries a domestic cat has from a long fall actually seems to go down above a certain height, specifically above about seven stories tall. There are two prevalent theories as to why this is the case.
The first, presented by the veterinarians who did this study, is that cats will tend to tense up and arch their backs while they are accelerating, similar to how they look when they are feeling threatened. While this form is great for absorbing short falls, it turns out to be a poor choice for a high velocity impact. Specifically, in these high velocity impacts, being tense like that will drastically increase the cat’s injury rate. In addition to this, this form will increase the cat’s velocity around 15 or so miles per hour over the estimated average terminal velocity for cats.
Once the cats reach their terminal velocity though, it’s theorized that they relax and assume a more spread-eagle, “flying squirrel”, stance, which in turn reduces their over-all velocity; puts them in a more relaxed body state; and gives a larger surface area to absorb the impact. While the study offers no direct visual proof of this happening, the types and locations of injuries seen from the cats that would have reached their terminal velocity seem to back up this idea...
Cats at around 7 stories should reach a velocity of around 40-45 mph, assuming around 10 feet per story, which is about 15-20 mph off their terminal velocity. Interestingly though, they should reach their terminal velocity at around 12-13 stories. In this study, there were numerous cats that survived falls as high as 32 stories and there have been recorded instances of cats falling from as high as 26 stories, that walk away with no injuries at all, which means those cats could have been dropped from 5000 feet and still have been fine, assuming they landed in the same spot and position.
