Free Fall and gravitational field strength

[studentxlol]

Hello.

For free fall to occur, does the rate at which you fall have to equal the gravitational field strength at that point above the surface?

If I'm in an airplane and accelerate towards the ground at an acceleration of 9.8ms^-2 equal to that of the Earth's gravitational field, then I experience zero g and therefore, weightlessness.

Is that right?

Also, if this is correct, and hypothetically I travel towards a black hole whose gravitational field strength is infinite, how would this work?

Help please!

 

[mikeph]

That is the condition for free fall.

A black hole's gravitational field strength is not infinite everywhere; from a distance, it has more or less the same gravitational field as any normal star of the same mass. It would only be (supposedly) infinite at the singularity.