Parabolic Flight - Experience Total Weightlessness

The images of floating astronauts in total weightlessness fascinate everybody. This pleasure of weightlessness is not only possible on the international space station ISS, but also far lower - with a parabolic flight onboard a modified Boeing 727 in the United States.

How Does Weightlessness during a Parabolic Flight Work?

How is weightlessness achieved? The parabolic flight is an aerobatic maneuver that our customers also request during our fighter jet flights. Only small parabolas are possible there, and you can only "float" within the constraints of your seatbelts.

In the much larger Boeing 727 in the US and the Il-76 in Russia, it works like this: The pilot first gathers momentum and then starts a rapid ascent, which results in a force about twice the normal gravitational force of the earth. Afterwards the pilot pushes the controls forward, such that the aircraft follows a parabolic trajectory, and eventually ends up in steep dive. During this phase the pilot can achieve the required weightlessness by monitoring a G-sensor. One phase of weightlessness lasts about 25 to a maximum of 30 seconds.

In this manner, zero G parabolic flights are flown. Apart from total weightlessness, a few parabolas are also flown with the same gravitational pull as the moon, i.e. about 1/6th G.