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  • Vertical component of projectile motion.
Topics:  Projectile motion, ballistic motion, velocity, acceleration, constant acceleration, gravity, freely falling body.

Pre-requisite skills:  An understanding of the kinematic equations of motion for constant acceleration.

Approximate completion time:  20 minutes.

Provide sufficient detail to verify that the assignment was completed in a meaningful manner.

Applet by Mark Sutherland
1.  Using the mouse, drag the button controlling the initial flight angle from 0 to 90 degrees.   The total time of flight is displayed on the right.  Describe what happens to the time of flight as the angle is increased.   Does this time of flight reach a maximum at any angle between 0 and 90 degrees?

2.  This applet includes air friction.   If air friction had been neglected, what initial angle would produce the longest range?  Does air friction change this maximal angle?

3.  When air friction is neglected, the time it takes to reach the top is exactly half the total time of flight.   Is this the case here, where drag is included?  Which part of the projectile motion features the longest time of flight, going up or going down?  Explain.

Helpful Resources

  1. Vectors and Motion by Tom Henderson.
  2. The Physics Hypertextbook by Glenn Elert (see Mechanics)
  3. Physics E-Book - Projectile Motion by Fred Gram (formerly, Zogrseb, of the planet Ktoobirzp).
  4. Book of Phyz - Motion by Dean Baird

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