Physics has a purpose

[iceman]

Until you try to empty the bag and get dust all over yourself.

I hate that.

But I'm psyched this thread pulled one of the uberlurkers out of his cave. Six posts in two years!

[wanghoeby]

Let's see here...

0=mg-.5DpAv^2

After doing a bit of online searching found some info on shkiers in motion.
Here's the numbers I came up with.

m=roughly 70 kg
D=for a skier is 1.0 to 1.1 ski jumper 1.2 to 1.3 I used 1.15 for my calculation
p=varies a bit also 20*F at 8,000ft rang up 1.0
20*F at 1,000 ft was roughly 1.3
A=.55(assuming 1. falling at a 30* angle 2. skis consist of 10cm by 170cm boards 3. your remaining body area equalling roughly .25 m^2)
v=for all this I got a v of 46.6 m/s or 104mph

By using the lower alt. and using slightly fatter skis you can lower the v down to 90mph.


The terminal velocity can be changed drastically because of the imbalance via the v^2 term as perviously noted by others. Bottom line is that you'd have to know all the little details to figure what max v is acurately.