text: if my helicopter was crashing are my chances of survival improved if i jump onto the top of a building? i figure that if i'm falling from say ... 1200ft in the air and i'm picking up speed as i fall, my chances of surviving the crash woud be improved if i jumped out of my cockpit onto a roof that was 200ft off the ground as opposed to crashing at 0ft - ground level.  i'm thinking that my accumulated cceleration would be less at 200ft above ground compared to the speed i'd be falling when i hit the ground at 0ft.  plus, i figure that if i jump in an upward motion out of the cockpit, the pull of gravity would counteract the acceleration of my upward jump and for a split moment "freeze" me in the air while it regained control of my body and pulled me back down to the rooftop.  so at 200ft, if i jump out and up 4ft into the air away from my crashing helicopter over a nearby rooftop; after being "frozen" in the air for a split second i'd only have a 4ft drop to the rooftop. i could survive a 4ft drop.  somebody tell me what i'm missing here, please. no, sorry, but your'e kind of off base with your logic.    first off, if you jump out of a crashing helicopter your odds of being killed are much greater.  a helicopter autorotates which acts like a parachute.  if you jump, it will be like jumping out of a plane without a parachute.  second, if you jump upward from the cockpit of a falling helicopter, your head will be chopped off by the spinning blades.  i remember a case where a guy was flying a helicopter and the engine stalled.  he paniced and jumped out at 300 feet.  he died instantly.  a few minutes later, the pilotless helicopter set down a few hundred feet beside him and only suffered minor damage.  the point being that he would have survived if he had stayed with his helicopter.