Uncontrolled swing

yoyoman said:
Me too! Glad you walked away from that one.
Question/Comment....You are 20' up in a tree or you are 20' away from and level with your anchor..... and you fall from your perch, which is going to have the most impact force?
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My guess is the swing into a trunk, the same gravitational force plus the centrifugal force sounds like a hard hit
 
It's the same. You start with the same amount of potential energy whether you're swinging as a pendulum or dropping like a stone (as in my case), assuming the 20' is the maximum length of the rope making up the pendulum arm. The difference is the directions of the forces through the swing.
 
I agree, the same, minus some small amount of slowing you get from the wind resistance from traveling further in an arc than a straight line.
Now, another way of looking at it.
Which would probably hurt more, landing on the flat ground at X velocity
or landing on a tree trunk or stub or stump that happens to be on the ground when you hit. (Same picture as the trunk in the swing)

I just think it is easy to overlook, most of us would not climb a tree and stand on a perch without some backup yet it is easy to do some lateral move, get out there and not be "connected".

Just thinking....and writing.... what is probably already obvious but overlooked.
 
Well, and maybe swinging into the trunk has some benefit, (not a good word, but) in that it could be a glancing blow and not a direct hit like the ground would be for sure.
Like you say treehumper, too many variable.
In my mind I'm just trying to put the swing on the same "level" as a fall so I avoid both.
 
yoyoman said:
Well, and maybe swinging into the trunk has some benefit, (not a good word, but) in that it could be a glancing blow and not a direct hit like the ground would be for sure.
Like you say treehumper, too many variable.
In my mind I'm just trying to put the swing on the same "level" as a fall so I avoid both.
Click to expand...
I've survived a couple of swings undamaged, where my feet landed against the trunk, that I don't feel quite as sure about if they were straight drops to the ground. Of course a parkour guy might disagree. :) But all in all I feel like a straight drop would be worse. Maybe because you still have something to hold onto (your rope) to help adjust your position during the swing?
 
If it's an apples to apples comparison. You're parallel to your TIP and fall then the force is equal but, as TL noted, you may be aligned with feet and body positioning and thus able to absorb the impact. On a straight drop especially where you can't roll out of the landing and the time to react is minimal, under 2 sec., its hard to do anything but take the full brunt of the fall.
 
TL, TH all good points and I know we are all on the same page.
Another consideration; a swing, however sever, will more than likely have to be dealt with in the tree as opposed to on the ground.
I also can imagine swing injuries will be............pardon the pun.............on the "upswing" due to all the redirects everyone is doing SRT.
 
The force pulling you toward the ground is the same. Since the speed of the swing is considerably slower than a fall, I'm guessing that a lot of that force is absorbed by the TIP and rope, and that the lateral forces slamming you into the trunk are quite a bit less than the impact with the ground. Just my guess. I'm no physicist.
 
Hmmm.... The force you hit the tree with in a swing, assuming it's at bottom dead center (bdc) of the swing will be equal to the force of a fall from the same height. F=mg and in the case of a pendulum F=mgsinØ, where Ø is the right angle to the pendulum arm. At the bottom sinØ= 1 making F=mg. The work is the same at bdc since the distance of the fall is the same W=Fd. The rope's dynamics would, if anything, increase the distance of the fall due to it's stretch. In a straight drop the ground becomes a rather inelastic limiter to the distance. We're talking ideal conditions. In most uncontrolled swings you're not at 90º to your tip and the trunk isn't necessarily at bdc. If it's beyond that then you've actually started to slow and thus have less kinetic energy.

Stuff that makes you go, hmmmmm...
 
I remember once I was making my way down the trunk of a live oak that was leaning out over a pond. My TIP was out over the pond but the base of the trunk was a little ways up the bank. At about 2 ft from reaching the ground I slipped and started my swing. At about the halfway point of my swing, there was a holly tree that had no intention of letting me get out over the pond uninhibited. That was one scenario where I would've rather had the "fall to the ground" than the swing. That holly tree was removed that day. :)
 
I have taken several un-controlled swings over the years some funny others not so.
if anything depending on the height (length of rope a factor) and distance away from the t.i.p, the speed that can be obtained at the midpoint of the swing where you meet a very solid object can be brutal to say the least but still seem to be less than a fall.
sorry the maths is lost on me.
my greater fear is a un-controlled swing resulting in a hit to the ground at mid point of the arc combing both the fall impact and the pendulum speed. sometimes it is better to contact a tree.
 
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