Home▸Physics & Mechanics▸Terminal Velocity Drag Simulator

🪂 Terminal Velocity: When Drag Finally Catches Gravity

Interactive 3D falling object where adjusting mass, cross-sectional area and air density shows the object accelerating until drag force balances gravity at a simulated terminal velocity.

Physics & Mechanics3DModerate60 FPS💨 Air & Wind

A falling body drops through a marked vertical shaft, speeding up under gravity while air drag pushes back harder with every extra m/s — until the two forces balance and the fall settles into a steady terminal velocity.

🔬 What It Demonstrates

Weight is constant, but drag scales with the square of speed. As velocity rises, the drag arrow grows to match the gravity arrow, net acceleration falls toward zero, and the fall stops speeding up — that's terminal velocity.

🎮 How to Use

Adjust mass, body orientation (drag coefficient), cross-sectional area and air density, then watch the live velocity bar climb toward the computed terminal velocity. Hit "Drop again" to restart the fall from height zero.

💡 Did You Know?

Flipping from a belly-to-earth position into a head-down dive can push a skydiver's terminal velocity from around 200 km/h past 325 km/h, simply by shrinking the frontal area and drag coefficient.

⚙ Under the hood

Interactive 3D falling object where adjusting shape, mass and air density shows how drag force grows with speed until it exactly cancels gravity at terminal velocity.

terminal-velocitydrag-forceair-resistanceprojectile-motionfluid-dynamicsphysics

3D · Three.js / WebGL renderer · 60 FPS target · runs fully client-side, no install