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05:19
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Q: What would be the safest way to drop thousands of small, hard objects from a typical, high wing, GA airplane?

bclarkrestonThe subject pretty much states my question, now I will provide a bit of background. A family member, who lived on the west coast of Florida Manasota Key, collected tens of thousands of fossilized sharks teeth between the mid-1940s and the late 1970s. I have now become involved in deciding what t...

safety general-aviation
Ron Beyer
Ron Beyer
You may be able to do it at night over a stretch of water that doesn't have any boats or swimmers. I wouldn't worry about damage too much, but I would certainly use an aircraft that you can remove the doors from.
FreeMan
FreeMan
"dropping of any object if reasonable precautions are taken to avoid injury or damage to persons or property. " Makes me think of as God as my witness, I thought turkeys could fly.
Eric Shain
Eric Shain
I think the best answer is to use a boat.
quiet flyer
quiet flyer
Other possible ideas- tie bottom of bag shut with water-soluble string and slower lower bag on long rope and then fly in descent till bag contacts water?
I'm assuming you don't require the teeth to be dispersed? It's ok if they all go at once? Otherwise better note in question. (Technically would invalidate some of my answers, but in this case I don't really mind)
Todd Wilcox
Todd Wilcox
I'm personally skeptical that a fossilized shark's tooth could penetrate a fuselage so easily. A greater risk, IMHO, is teeth getting lodged somewhere around where the tail control surfaces are actuated.
abligh
abligh
05:19
Headline in local newspaper: "Area naturalists panic as sharks appear to have lost all teeth overnight"
Strawberry
Strawberry
Just make sone nice art work from the pieces that you have
Oscar Bravo
Oscar Bravo
Don't you have a hatch in the floor like Barry Seal?
quiet flyer
quiet flyer
Off topic I guess, but wouldn't such a huge collection of fossilized teeth be of scientific value to someone?
bclarkreston
bclarkreston
@FreeMan no doubt...arguably the best line ever said in an American sitcom!
nick012000
nick012000
Why not just donate them to science or a natural history museum? That way you can ensure that the children of the future will be able to find them. The vast majority of beaches nowadays are artificial, anyway.
bclarkreston
bclarkreston
05:19
@nick012000 yes, that option is on the table.
Jim
Jim
Anything the size of a quarter or smaller means that 20 or more of them occupy a cubic inch. A kid's lunch box of about 500 cubic inches would hold about 10,000 of these. Just how many lunch boxes worth do you have that you would be doing fossil searchers a favor by scattering them this way?
bclarkreston
bclarkreston
Well, I haven't actually counted them. Assuming your numbers are correct, I would roughly estimate about 10 of the lunch boxes you describe. A separate question (which you kind of ask) is how much impact this would have. Probably not relevant to this forum though.
davidbak
davidbak
@abligh - alternatively, there's a future "Florida man ..." headline waiting to be written ...
David Richerby
David Richerby
Pretty sure the answer to the title question is "While on the ground."
bogl
bogl
+1 for using a boat
Cloud
Cloud
05:19
Do you have access to a helicopter? Seems like it would be more appropriate. Also, it's too hard to visually see if anyone is down there and thus, you'll kill them. Maybe purchase an infrared camera to check.
java-addict301
java-addict301
To be blunt, this sounds like a very dangerous and bad idea (whether legal or not). There are plenty of ways to distribute these without turning them into deadly projectiles. Please don't.
quiet flyer
quiet flyer
I'm confused. What do flying turkeys have to do with flying shark teeth? I saw a turkey in a tree and I'm pretty sure it didn't climb up there and also wasn't dropped out of a pvc pipe or frozen in ice or cookie dough--
Ok I confess, the negative-g pushover answer was a joke, now deleted

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