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by CharlieH
Wed Jan 06, 2016 9:53 am
Forum: Never Again!!
Topic: Bullet falling from the sky kills Houston man
Replies: 48
Views: 15117

Re: Bullet falling from the sky kills Houston man

As a skydiver and engineer I want to point out there is no "Terminal Velocity" number in 1 ATM that can be used for simple calculations. A 230 grain 45 ACP round is going to have a MUCH higher terminal velocity than a 115g 9mm, and even more energy.

The equation is Image.

If that image doesn't work, here it is in programmer notation.

Terminal Velocity = Sqrt(( 2 * mass * g) / ( p * A * Cd )).

Cd is the hard one. With spin it will be constant, but with a tumbling bullet it will vary. A larger sphere of lead is going to have a much higher mass/area ratio than a small one. No one needs to worry about bird shot raining on them.

But heavier skydivers fall faster and must wear suits with higher drag coefficients to slow down, and light skydivers wear weights.

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