Jumping cats

[bennynorules]

How far can a cat jump (or fall) and land safely?

[Quizmonster]

Click http://www.newscientist.com/lastword/article.jsp?i
d=lw1018 for a scientific examination of the matter.

[Ewood27]

I wish I could remember the full details, but there is a town in Belgium where some 500 years ago a leading burgess publicly tested the question of falling cats by dropping one from a tall tower. The cat survived, but wisely departed, never to be seen again.
My own childhood researches with our long-suffering cat established that it needed to be dropped from at least waist height to allow it to twist from feet up to feet down. It could also dig its claws into the lead strips surrounding small panes of glass and climb, if sufficiently terrified by having a cotton reel tied to its tail, but that's another story.

[bennynorules]

Ewood - thanks for that !!!!!!! :)

[Pickle]

Wow, that's amazing! So, theoretically you could drop a cat from an aeroplane and, because it can survive a fall at terminal velocity, it would be OK?