Free Fall Calculator

This calculator handles a fall under gravity three ways. Enter a height, or a number of seconds, and it returns the fall time, the distance covered and the impact speed on Earth or on six other bodies. A third tab adds air resistance: give the mass, the frontal area, the drag coefficient and the air density and it solves the same fall with drag in it, returning the terminal velocity alongside the real impact speed and how far the vacuum answer is out. Drag is modelled as one fixed coefficient on one fixed area, so a tumbling body is only approximated.

Calculator Type
Height Measured In
Starting Speed Measured In
Gravity Measured In

The vacuum equations. Exact for a dense object over a short drop, and increasingly wrong the longer the fall, which is what the third tab is for.

In the unit picked above. Leave at zero for a drop from rest.
In the unit picked above, and only used when Where is set to your own gravity. The named bodies carry their published figure whichever unit is showing.
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Starting Speed Measured In
Gravity Measured In

How far something has fallen, and how fast it is going, after a set number of seconds.

In the unit picked above. Leave at zero for a drop from rest.
In the unit picked above, and only used when Where is set to your own gravity.
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Height Measured In
Mass Measured In
Area Measured In
Gravity Measured In

Dropped from rest into still air. Gives the terminal velocity, the speed and time at the ground, and how far the vacuum answer is out.

The silhouette the object presents as it falls, not its surface area.
Smooth sphere about 0.47, a person face down about 1.0 to 1.2, a flat plate about 1.28, a parachute canopy 1.3 to 1.5.
Kilograms per cubic metre, which is the unit every atmosphere table and every published air density is written in, so there is nothing to choose here and the unit controls above do not reach it. 1.225 at sea level, about 0.91 at 3,000 m, about 0.41 at 10,000 m.
In the unit picked above. A blank box means standard gravity, which is 9.80665 m/s^2, 32.17405 ft/s^2 or 1 g, and the fallback is applied after the unit is read so a blank box means the same gravity whichever is showing.
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