How far do you have to fall to reach 89 mph free fall?

Answer 1

To come up with any sort of answer, we have to neglect air resistance. If we wanted to include

air resistance, we'd need to know the exact shape of the falling object, and its behavior during

the fall. (We know that a sky diver can change his rate of fall just by manipulating the position

of his body.) Including air resistance would make this a much, much more complicated problem.

The distance traveled during constant acceleration is [ 1/2 A T2 ]. T=time spent falling.

(89 mph) x (5280 ft/mile) x (1 hr/3600 sec) = 130.533 ft/sec

The time to reach that speed in fall is (130.533/32.2) = 4.054 sec

1/2 g T2 = (16.1 x 16.434) = 264.58 feet

Answer 2

Assuming constant acceleration due to gravity (9.81 m/s^2), it would take about 2.7 seconds to reach a speed of 89 mph (40 m/s) in free fall. During this time, an object would fall about 56 meters (184 feet) before reaching that speed.