Ballistic Trajectory Tutorial
In this tutorial you can experiment with ballistic trajectories as
discussed in Chapter 7. The tutorial will help you to visualize the
flight path, speed, and duration of projectiles fired at different
initial angles and velocities.
Simulation
Click below
and the simulation window will appear.
If you click on the Fire button, you will see the trajectory
that is followed by a cannon ball fired at 50 meters/sec, at a 45
degree angle, with gravitational acceleration of 9.8 meters/sec/sec.
The simulation runs in real time, which means that the amount of time
that the simulated cannon ball spends in flight is roughly equal to
the amount of time that a real cannon ball would spend in flight.
By adjusting the initial velocity, firing angle, and gravitational
constant and clicking on "Fire" again, you can view other simulated
trajectories and compare them to the original one.
Experiment with some trajectories to get a feel for how the three
parameters affect the flight of the trajectory. You will probably
want to make the simulation window larger so that you can see more
trajectories.
Last modified 17Oct96.