Could a fire hose really support the weight of a falling man?
In the movie Die Hard, near the end, John McClane ties a fire hose around his waist and jumps off the roof of the Nakotomi plaza building.
Would a fire hose really be able to support the weight of a man of that build at falling speeds?
Best Answer
I suspect the fire hose would survive, but our poor action hero would not.
From this article:
So in the Die Hard fall its unlikely to stretch very much. Lets say in Bruce's jump a 10m fire hose stretches 1% i.e. 0.1m. Our force formula now becomes F = 7900 / 0.1 = 79000 N ... equivalent to the weight of about 100 Bruce Willis!
So what would happen to our action hero? Talking through all this one day with the actor and presenter Robert Llewellyn he quite rightly reflected "I think there would be a Bruce and somewhere else a Willis!"
Pictures about "Could a fire hose really support the weight of a falling man?"
How much weight can a fire hose support?
Most attack hoses are available in 50-foot lengths and can hold pressures up to and around 400 pounds per square inch of pressure or PSI and sometimes more.How heavy is a fire fighter hose?
With couplings, the weight of 100 feet of 4-inch hose is approximately 78 pounds; similar length of 6-inch is approximately 135 pounds. LDH plus water is very heavy. It is an accepted fire service understanding that 5-inch LDH will hold 1 gallon of water per foot of hose.How heavy is a fire hose with water?
The line on average attack fire hose is 1 3/4\u2033 with its own threaded couplings. 85 lbs of weight is attributed to the hose, 120 lbs of weight based on hose ID and normal known hose length.How far can a fire hose spray?
Between 75 feet and 100 feet straight up, depending on water pressure. In practice, though, firefighters on the ground rarely attempt to reach higher than 40 feet with hoses.Dogs Tested to See Whether They’d Defend Owner During Home Invasion
More answers regarding could a fire hose really support the weight of a falling man?
Answer 2
Fire hoses are designed to take huge water pressure - up to 290 psi - with bursting pressure up to 3 times that. I don't know what stress the weight of a man at the speed of falling would would be - but I suspect the hose would be adequate to the task.
Sources: Stack Exchange - This article follows the attribution requirements of Stack Exchange and is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
Images: Pixabay, Julia Larson, Julia Larson, Andrea Piacquadio