The phenomenon of a liquid jet released under gravity and falling through o
r impacting onto another liquid before colliding with an obstructing solid
surface has been studied experimentally under isothermal conditions. Usuall
y the jet diameter was sufficiently large to ensure jet coherency until col
lision. Direct flow visualization was used to study jets released into wate
r pools with no air head space and jets impacting onto water pools after fa
lling through an air head space. It is shown that distances predicting the
onset of buoyancy and the entrainment of air using derivations from continu
ous plunging jets, are not applicable for impacting jets. The morphology of
jet debris after collision with the solid surfaces correlates with the wet
ting properties of the jet liquid on the surface.