The time it takes Drake to move vertically is exactly the same time it takes Drake to move horizontally. This means I can use horizontal motion to calculate the time, and then use that time in vertical motion to find his final vertical position.
When Drake does his jump, he needs to get to a vertical position at zero meters; that’s where the ramp is and where i set the origin. If this final value is less than 0 meters, he will land below plane. And that would be bad.
Determining horizontal movement is not so difficult. Since he has a constant velocity, I can find his final horizontal position using the following equation:
Check this out: I know where x starts (xfirst = 2.4 m) and the last x position (x2 = 0 m) so that I can use the x velocity to solve the time taken to complete the jump. (He’s moving left, so it’ll be minus 3.37 m/s.)
Note that in the trailer we don’t see the full jump, but if it did, it would take 0.71 seconds to get to the plane’s rear ramp.
Now, I can take this time and plug it into the vertical kinematics equation. This gives the final y position of negative 1.79 meters.
It’s lower than 0, so there’s nothing but air below him. And remember: That sucks.
We’re not done yet, but it’s worth taking a second to wonder why he ended even lower than he started. That’s because even though his initial velocity is in the positive (upward) direction, the jump will take a long time for gravity to stop his upward movement and cause him to move downward with speed is getting faster and faster.
What about moving air?
When you stick your hand out the window of a moving car, you can feel something pushing you back. This is the interaction between your hand and the air molecules around the car — we call this drag. The amount of force you feel depends on your hand’s relative speed with respect to the air, and the size and shape of your hand. At very high speeds, this air resistance can be very significant.
Let’s say the plane has a cruising speed of 120 mph — I like that value because it resembles the terminal velocity of a human parachutist. When someone falls through the air for a while, gravity causes them to increase their speed. But this increase in velocity also increases the drag of the upward air. At some point not long after the jump, the resistance of the upward air is equal to the downward gravity. This means that the total force is zero and the diver is no longer accelerating. Instead, they now move at a constant speed. We call it terminal velocity. Of course, humans can still adapt their bodies and interact with the air to turn and move — which is why skydiving is still so much fun.
