Bomb Drop from a Moving Plane
A jet in level flight releases a bomb. The simulation draws the same fall twice at once — the parabola an observer on the ground sees, and the straight vertical line the pilot sees — so the two descriptions can be compared side by side.
How to use this simulation
- Set the release altitude, the aircraft speed and the strength of gravity
- Switch air resistance on and off, and choose a terminal speed
- Move the target and release on the marked line, or let the sim release for you
- Switch between the ground observer, the plane’s frame, a chase view and a bomb-cam
What to look for
- The horizontal gap between bomb and plane reads zero for the whole fall while drag is off
- Strobe markers are evenly spaced horizontally but spread out vertically — constant vₓ, accelerating vᵧ
- Doubling the altitude multiplies the fall time by √2, not by 2
- With drag on, the plane-frame path tilts backwards and the range falls short of v·√(2h/g)
The physics behind it
At the moment of release the bomb already carries the aircraft’s horizontal velocity, and with no horizontal force it keeps that velocity unchanged. The plane keeps the same velocity too, so the bomb stays directly beneath it the whole way down. Vertically it starts from rest and accelerates at g, giving a fall time t = √(2h/g) and a horizontal range R = v·t that is independent of the bomb’s mass. Switching on air drag breaks the symmetry: the bomb loses horizontal speed, falls behind the aircraft and lands short.