Air Force officer, flight surgeon, physician, biophysicist, and pioneer in studying the effects of acceleration and deceleration forces on humans. 82.6 gs was a brief peak acceleration measured by a sensor on his chest due to the elastic response of his rib cage.īeeding retired from the Air Force in 1971, later moving to Colorado where he died in 2013 at the age of 85.Ĭolonel John Paul Stapp, (J– November 13, 1999) M.D., Ph.D., was an American career U.S. Beeding’s sled in fact decelerated at 40.4 gs for 0.04 seconds as it slowed from 35 mph to a stop over a distance of one foot. Guinness and many other sources incorrectly reported that Beeding endured 82.6 gs for 0.04 seconds. Still, the incident was wholly remarkable and made Beeding a hero, and, for several decades thereafter, his name appeared in the Guinness Book of World Records. “That doesn’t sound like much (time),” Beeding notes, “But I guarantee you, having been through it at lesser durations, one second is an eternity.” Beeding however is quick to point out that he rode the sled backward, and that his time at 83 gs was “infinitesimal” compared to the 1.1-second durations Stapp faced during his own tests. When word got out, the young captain made headlines as the man who had topped John Stapp’s g-force record. Subsequent tests with bears showed that the reading was not a fluke and that Beeding had indeed endured a massive g load. “But later my boss came to me and said, ‘The chest accelerometer tracing shows you got 82.6 g!’” “I thought that was the big excitement of the day,” Beeding recalls. Doctors determined his back was only badly bruised. Ten minutes later, Beeding emerged from shock and was rushed to the base hospital. Roy Gatewood gently moved Beeding onto the side of the sled and elevated his feet. Taking a calculated risk, Eason, and Tech. Yet there was a chance his back was broken, in which case he shouldn’t be touched. It was a scary moment since the standard protocol for shock would be to elevate Beeding’s feet. Les Eason of his troubles when he began to experience tunnel vision and passed out. “When I hit the water brake,” Beeding recalled in a recent interview, “It felt like Ted Williams had hit me on the back, about lumbar five, with a baseball bat.” Beeding had barely informed flight surgeon Capt. The Daisy shot down the track, reached a top speed around 35 mph, and came to a screeching halt in less than a tenth of a second. Participants rode the “Daisy Sled” (so-called because it was originally designed to be air, and not a rocket, powered) at various speeds and in many different positions - even head first - in an attempt to learn more about the g-force limits of the human body. In 1958, a series of experiments using a miniature rocket sled began at Holloman AFB under the supervision of Colonel John Stapp and Captain Beeding. Air Force captain and rocket test subject. World Record 83 G Deceleration Peak on Rocket Sled (1967) USAFĮli Lackland Beeding Jr. Sensors showed Beeding took a momentary peak of 82.6 g while sustaining an average of 40.4 gs for 0.04 seconds. In the second event, on May 16, 1958, Eli Beeding, facing backward, was accelerated to 35 mph, then stopped in less than 1/10 second (over a distance of 1 foot). First, on December 10, 1954, John Paul Stapp, facing forward, was accelerated to a speed of 632 mph, breaking the land speed record and making him “the fastest man on earth.” The sled was then slowed by water, and Stapp took 46.2 g for 1.1 seconds.
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