Playing Fair and Being Kind

BLUE ICE

…and other hazards

Quite a few years ago someone experienced a modern hazard, a hazard generated by air travel, toilet use, and poor quality control. Perhaps I should explain. In commercial airplanes the toilet is a portable device which can be removed on the ground for disposal. I’m not sure how much of the device is portable, I think it is the tank liner with the (ahem) material intact. The substance used to flush the toilet bowl is the standard blue chemical-water mix.

The someone on the ground was nearly crushed by a large chunk of plummeting blue ice which contained feces and urine. The projectile arrived in their back yard and destroyed part of an arbor on the patio. A piece of the poo-bomb broke off and broke the shoulder of the victim. The thing was traveling at terminal velocity at about one hundred and thirty miles per hour. To be sure no one really knows how fast it was falling. The terminal velocity is dependent on a few components such as altitude, weight, shape, etc. If one is interested I can provide the mathematical formula to determine the speed of arrival at ground level from a height of about thirty five thousand feet. I’ve loosely calculated in my head (I’m excellent at estimating things like this, don’t ask me why) that said chunk of blue ice was going about one hundred and thirty miles per hour. That is slightly faster than a falling body (human) in sky diving mode.

I’ve also calculated that the chunk of blue ice took about three and half minutes to find its way to the arbor on the patio after it left the airplane. I’m assuming that the airplane was at thirty five thousand feet above the ground when it let go of that huge frozen blue turd. If someone is of a mind to, go ahead and correct my estimation, please.

These thoughts visit me on occasion when I sit in my back yard under a clear blue sky relaxing in a lawn chair. Where I live is directly under the flight path of high speed, high flying commercial airplanes going from northern Europe to Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C. While lounging and sipping or reading or both I will hear one of the airliners above me and the contrail is visible. The sound of the engines is above me but the aircraft is probably five or more miles along the track toward the megalopolis. I think the speed of sound is around one thousand, one hundred twenty five feet per second so you can do the arithmetic if you like. Of course the chunk of blue ice is not falling that fast. I estimate the chunk of frozen waste is traveling at 180 feet/second. However you slice it (please don’t!). The stuff is moving right along.

With the images of the disaster of years ago screening in my mind I begin to look toward the sound not the airplane. I imagine a tiny dot of something is hurtling my direction and I shift in my seat. A.J. Pierzynski is a former Major League Baseball catcher who is now announcing games on network television. He recounted yesterday during a Red Sox vs. Tigers game how he was once hit in the face by a foul ball while he was standing in the batter’s circle near home plate. The ball traveled off the bat of the hitter and he saw the ball coming his way and was so surprised he could not react at all. He saw the ball coming but he didn’t move. The ball struck him in the face. I might do the same thing when I see a chunk of blue ice falling toward me from above. By the time my eye picks up the object and my mind interprets the image it will be too late to take evasive action. I will be bonked by a big blue messy turd package. RIP George.

I’ve mentioned on social media before about this fear I have of getting it from above by the blue, frozen, silent assassin. My concerns were pooh-poohed. Maybe a poor choice of words, just the same, some thought I was exaggerating. Well, I have certain proof that the blue ice thing is real. Explain this photo. Yeah? Well…there you go.

I stopped just long enough to grab this photograph and as I was getting back into my car a middle aged woman came down the driveway to investigate but I got out of there fast. She didn’t follow me.

I rest my case.

G. M. Goodwin 12 June 2017