Joerg takes a ride

Sure. Don't do that from 4000ft :-)

It never bored me. The views alone where spectacular. Then birds joing me in my flight and all that. The only other vehicle that can give you such an experience is a hot air baloon but birds will likely scurry away when the flame starts its loud whooshing. When hanging under a parachute they seemed not to perceive me as a threat but rather something weird that needed to be investigated.

This was in Belgium but I think the rules were similar.

I started at 3000ft :)

You can get that from gliders. 10k-24kft is normal in wave, and the UK record is 37000ft, higher than most commercial airliners.

But usually it is up to cloudbase.

I can imagine that. There are videos of raptors playing with glider's wingtips.

I had a hot air balloon flight once. OK, but the landing was "exciting" and I wouldn't recommend it to the infirm. Never wanted to have another, even though and there's a very large festival 2km from my house every August.

Physiology doesn't change much :)

I jumped a little with some crazy people in Louisiana. They had an ancient Beechcraft with basically no interior, bare metal with wires and cables and things. They would sit under a tree and drink beer and then hop on the plane when it was in condition to fly. They would use a chute until it turned to confetti, then pull the reserve. One guy had no altimiter so I asked him when he knew to pull his chute. "When I can't stand it any more."

I'd rather ski. It's easier on the ankles.

I've driven at 12K in Rocky Mountain national park. The car (carburated 240Z) barely ran. We weren't too peppy either.

I ski at 8600 or so, and it's not bad, and one can lose altitude fast.

We had our share of low-pullers, too. They'd pull so low that the chance to cut free and pull the reserve in time in case of a roman candle or some other tangle was near zero.

We had one aircraft that they called "200,000 pieces that somehow hold together and fly". The best we ever had was a stripped Dornier 27 but when it reached 30 years on the frame it faced mandatory retirement despite being in top shape. A very sad day for us when it was ferried out to pasture.

But not on the other parts of the body when suddenly a tree jump into the path. That happened to our insurance agent and he almost didn't make it. Skiing and mountain biking aren't that far apart in terms of injury risk if you don't count trail rashes, rattlesnake bites and such.

I and my daughter have gone from 150ft to 11500ft within half a day. I didn't have significant problems, but she didn't want to walk. Next day, after sleeping at 6000ft, she was OK.

I have a disturbed sleep if I go from 150ft to 9600ft, e.g. Breckenridge, or 4000ft to 10500ft, e.g. Rifugio Boe.

When I started skiing, boots were leather laceups, and safety bindings were optional extras, skis reached up to your outstretched wrist, and piste machines were unknown. You saw a bloodbath being used at least twice a day, for broken ankles.

Consequently you skied more slowly, taking great care to judge what the snow would allow you to do.

Nowadays skiis are shorter, bindings release in most but not all directions, boots support your ankles, and too much is piste bashed into boredom.

Consequently people use raw power, not skill and judgement, to get down a slope. And when something goes wrong all the forces are transmitted to "God's mistake", (better known as knees), where the energy is dissipated by disrupting various soft tissues.

Now broken bones mend themselves pretty well, whereas soft tissues don't mend themselves very well. :(

Hence, whereas ankles are protected, knees aren't.

A few years after I did my jumps, that plane's wing spar buckled in flight. The 'chutists said something like "Oh, how irritating, goodbye....", and departed the scene.

The pilot landed safely.

Glider pilots have a similar attitude to engines. I've seen tugs being jumpstarted from batteries on the runway, whereas at a powered club the aircraft wouldn't even have left the hanger. The tug pilots' attitude is "it is only the engine; what's the problem?" (Tuggies are invariably good glider pilots)

We had one incidence where the wings iced up so fast that we almost couldn't clear the treetops past the end of the runway. Problem is, you can't jump out at 50ft altitude.

We sleep like drugged babies in Truckee, but that's only 6400. I barely notice any difference at 6400. I have heard of people getting "altitude sickness" in Denver.

Given that airliners are pressurised to, IIRC, 8000ft altitude, I would expect few people would have problems at 6400ft. I should have noted that my disturbed sleep at 9600ft lasted for 1 night; presumably I acclimatised thereafter.

Ouch. The equivalent in gliders is canopy misting; I've seen an instructor land a glider by peering through the DV vent (direct vision, 10*15cm hole) on the /side/ of the canopy.

Of course icing at altitude can be a problem; typically the airbrakes freeze.

Travel isn't good for your metabolism either. And apparently people don't sleep well in the first night in a new place.

There's some ancient evolutionary thing there maybe.

It's also been noted that when a man shares a bed with a woman, he tends to sleep on the side of the bed closest to the door. He's the assigned defender.

We do sleep great in the cabin in the mountains, but maybe because we are used to it. I do sleep on the side of the bed nearest the door.

Many just get used to it. After about half a million miles usually traveled across many times zones I can now sleep like a log the first night. In either direction, even if it's 9h time shift. That used to take me 2-3 days but not anymore.

Hmm, then I dunnit wrong many times. We usually sleep on the same sides no matter how the bed is oriented or where the door is.

Agreed, but we've travelled sufficiently often and far to know that this was the effect of altitude.

Most people don't do anything more stressing than walk 50' to the head while airborne. Some sleep but others can't. I don't think there any conclusions to be made here.