Parachute design is nothing short of amazing. The fascinating physics of skydiving continues into the five or six-minute canopy flight portion of the jump.
Head down flyers, for example – whose heads are pointed to the earth and legs are to the sky – won’t reach terminal velocity until between 150 and 180 mph. More advanced flyers enjoy playing around with different body positions, all of which influence drag. Put one arm into the wind and you’ll turn push down with your legs and you’ll go forward. Bring them closer to your body, you’ll fall faster spread them apart and you’ll slow down. Moving your arms and legs affects your fall rate and direction. The skydiving arch – the characteristic belly-to-earth position for tandem students and beginning solo flyers – allows you to create a significant surface area, giving air friction plenty to push against. Fun fact – some skydivers wear weights in order to increase their fall rate.īody positioning will affect your speed, big time. Mass (size and weight) will affect the speed at which you’ll fall. Two easy-to-control factors affect your rate of terminal velocity, allowing you to change how much drag you create. Instead, you feel like you’re floating – because you kinda are!
Terminal velocity is one of the factors that keep you from feeling like you’re falling. Typically, skydivers fall at a rate of 120 mph once terminal velocity is achieved. From here you will continue falling at the same rate – you won’t go any faster or slower. Immediately upon exiting, gravity will start calling you back down to terra firma while the wind resistance that’ll meet you from below will keep you sky-high.Īs freefall progresses and your rate of fall increases, both forces will become stronger … until they become equal. Freefall offers, on average, a glorious minute of good-good physics. Let’s start at the top with the holy grail we all seek: freefall. But some high-level info on the physics of skydiving is important to understand because it will make you a better skydiver and help you appreciate the magic you pull off with every jump! The Physics of The Skydiving Freefall We won’t bog you down with too much detail because, well, blue skies are calling. Turns out, a whole lot of that math and science stuff is useful for understanding the science of skydiving. We’ve all had those moments back in our school days – you know, the “I’m never going to need this” mindset? For some, these thoughts struck in math class for others, it was during science.
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