Which bullet hits ground 1st: Dropped or shot w/o obstacle?

[esxmarkc]

Maybe this is too simple a question but if the bullet
had "aerodynamic lift", wouldn't it have to have a power
source to keep it going as fast as when it left the barrel?

Think about how paper airplane works. It has aerodynamic qualities so we give it a "Lift to Drag" ratio or "L/D" for short.

I can take a piece of paper and wad it in a ball and shoot it out of a slingshot in level trajectory and technically it would suffer the same fate as the bullet: It would hit the ground at the same time as if you had merely dropped it.

Now take another piece of paper and fold it into a really nice airplane and shoot it out of a slingshot and as it is moving forward it's "drag" through the air gives it "lift" (if built properly) and will stay aloft for a really long time. If it was built really nice it would likely even gain a lot of altitude until it's drag drops it's foward speed to the point where it levels off and then slowly glides it's way down. It's "power" is in it's kinetic energy (1/2Mass * Velocity^2) and as it bleeds off its forward velocity it looses it's energy.

Both sheets of paper weigh the same but the paper airplane is so much more fun to play with!

[jimlongley]

The current record for paper airplane flight duration is 27.6 seconds, 27.9 seconds, and 27.1 seconds based on construction. All of these are indoors.

May 26th is "National Paper Airplane Day" and also was my late wife's birthday. I always try to fly at least one on that date.

My current duration record is just over a minute, according to my stopwatch, for one launched from the top of the Rio hotel in Las Vegas. It probably is also my distance record if you count vertical.

[woodsong]

Aircraft taking off generate enough lift to leave the earth,
but then they need the jets to continue supply thrust to
keep the aircraft aloft, n'est ce pas?

Actually, the jet thrust doesn't keep the aircraft aloft -- they just propel it forward. The airfoil shape and angle of attack of the wings are where the lift comes from.

As someone mentioned, a bullet shape is aerodynamically neutral -- it's the above the midline as it is below, so the only "lift" it could receive would be from angle of attack. However, in this instance, we're excluding that since we're shooting the bullet on a level plane. So ... aerodynamics shouldn't be a factor. The bullet spin might have a slight effect , but shouldn't be that noticeable in such a short test time/distance.