Followup: Free Fall

A few days ago, I noted the anniversary of the winning performance in the Tour de Zeus--the intergalactic free fall sweepstakes. I noted to myself at the time that I really didn't have a clue as to how she did it. Comes now Popular Mechanics (good heavens, are they still around?) with a bit of background (link):

There are two ways to fall out of a plane. The first is to free-fall, or drop from the sky with absolutely no protection or means of slowing your descent. The second is to become a wreckage rider, a term coined by Massachusetts-based amateur historian Jim Hamilton, who developed the Free Fall Research Page—an online database of nearly every imaginable human plummet. That classification means you have the advantage of being attached to a chunk of the plane. In 1972, Serbian flight attendant Vesna Vulovic was traveling in a DC-9 over Czechoslovakia when it blew up. She fell 33,000 feet, wedged between her seat, a catering trolley, a section of aircraft and the body of another crew member, landing on—then sliding down—a snowy incline before coming to a stop, severely injured but alive.

Plenty more good stuff where this came from. Look for a really mucky swamp, or snow. Plain water, not so good, doesn't compress--but if must do water, try feet first with pointy toes. And do not land on your head.