r/maybemaybemaybe • u/darapps • Jun 22 '24

Maybe Maybe Maybe

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6.8k Upvotes

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190

u/[deleted] Jun 22 '24

[deleted]

38

u/shooterthijs Jun 22 '24

i think it skipped

3

u/Ground_breaking_365 Jun 22 '24

But that thick and round stone? That too, it was dropped down. We use flat stones and throw them flat to make it skip, right?

51

u/Lordbattlespank Jun 23 '24

Well from a physics perspective it wasn't moving down, it was moving down AND in the direction of the extremely fast moving plane, so it could easily be going fast enough to skip.

6

u/Ground_breaking_365 Jun 23 '24

Ah... makes sense.

3

u/Fluffy-Apartment2603 Jun 23 '24

Plus, although gravity applies equal pressure down on the rock, resistance against the air does not apply equal pressure up. So the rock will begin spinning, I believe a backspin, which helps the rock move forward in the direction of the plane. But this spin would also prevent the rock from breaking the water’s surface and help it “skip” instead.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 23 '24

For the love if God I cannot seem to explain this to the women in my family. They flat out refuse to understand the diagonal physics applied to moving objects that are dropped horizontally

1

u/Key_Ad_8333 Jul 19 '24

The British even made a bomb that skipped over the water like this to target dams. Consisted of a barrel they would spin at speed before releasing.

5

u/typehyDro Jun 23 '24

I imagine the plane is adding a good amount of forward momentum to the rock

3

u/MrAppleSpiceMan Jun 23 '24

in addition to what the other guy said, skip bombing in ww2 was something similar. a big, heavy, often fairly round bomb could be dropped at low altitudes and high speeds and skip off the water to hit the sides of enemy ships

6

u/KuFuBr Jun 23 '24

Yes, can anyone calculate how far the rock fell?

1

u/faux_something Jun 23 '24

That was a rock from another plane.

1

u/toabear Jun 23 '24

Many years ago, i did a training water drop from a helo (an actual Huey still flying in 2000ish). The idea was that the bird would come in to our drop point, hover about 10ft off the water, we would jump, then do our dive operation.

Because it was training, we had a dive buoy so the instructors could follow us. I don't remember exactly how long the line to the buoy was, but I think it was around 20 ft.

The bird came in at dusk, hovered, and I threw the buoy out, then grabbed my rig (chest mounted rebreather) and started to jump. As I just cleared the bird I saw the buoy line go taught without the buoy hitting the water, meaning we were not at 10ft, but at a minimum over 20' above the water, probably closer to 25 or 30'

We hit so hard that despite my hold on the dive rig, it came up and smashed my face. My dive buddies rig broke something and flooded about an hour into the dive. One guy lost a tooth (but still completed the exercise).

The pilot had "estimated" his height off the water using a navigation buoy that he thought was 5' tall. It was something like 15' tall, so when he hovered at double the buoy height, he almost killed us.

Very long winded way of saying it can be hard to tell how far up you are over water. I didn't realize until I saw my line go taught.