Terminal Velocity

We are most interested in the free-fall and landing terminal velocities, but the terminal velocity is easily found for any time during the jump.

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> V[term] := solve( Vterm[quad], v(t) )[2];

[Maple Math]

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> Vt := simplify( subs( k=kk, param, V[term] ) );

[Maple Math]

The terminal velocity during free-fall and final descent are consistent with our earlier observations. The free-fall terminal velocity is extremely close to 100 mph. The final descent terminal velocity does not match reality nearlyy as well; as expected, the landing speed is higher than the speeds found in the literature.

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Observe that the continuity of the drag coefficient says that the terminal velocity must be continuous for all time. This is not immediately apparent from the explicit definition of the terminal velocity or its graph.

> plot( Vt, t=0..20 );

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