How fast are my bullets going

Heff006 wrote: Why is it that most of the world uses the metric system but Americans still use imperial measurements. So much easier to divide by 100, 1000 etc than quarters of inches etc. strange ?

Many of us "progressive" Americans are more than willing to adopt the much more sensible metric system. Unfortunately we are held back by the "conservative" factions who believe "that's the way we've always done it" is a valid reason to resist new ideas. Unfortunately this is a problem throughout society and retards progress in almost every social paradigm.

Fortunately youth are typically more open to new ideas so there is hope that someday logic and science will prevail as the holders of antiquated beliefs die out and become the minority.

Of course this happens to some degree in all societies. The USA just seems more prone to it in some ways. I wonder; if the Roman Empire had never fallen, how much progress would have been heald back because of these closed minds?

It's bad enough that you guys bully me in the game! Now you demonstrate my further inadequacy with all this math talk!!! Shame on you!! LOL! The real question is the accuracy of a 7mm (german), .300 (English) machine gun at over 1.5km? I know we are all logging kills out there with those distance shots... Stupid math.. DOH!

AtharvBhat wrote: i gave it a lot of thought and finally came up with one more question.

How accurate are the engines in df ?

For this i conducted an experiment on red barron.

I found out the weight of red barron plane on the net . It was in lbs , so i converted it to kg.

Its approx 584 kg.

It took the plane approx 7 seconds to reach 120 kmph from zero which is 33.33 meters per sec.

So the acceleration becomes 33.33/7 = 4.76 m/s^2.

The force applied by the prop = mass*acceleration = 584 * 4.76 =2780.67 N.

Ao the power of engine = f*velocity = 2780.67*33.33 = 92679.87 watt.

Which is equal to 92679.87/746 horsepower. = 124 hp.

I did a little research and found that the power of redbarron was 110 hp.

Thats extremely accurate , given the fact that i didnt consider factors like air drag, bouyant forces, and other stuff like air density.

WELL DONE ZUP !!

think you missed one factor here, the weight of the pilot !

McFate wrote:

Heff006 wrote: Why is it that most of the world uses the metric system but Americans still use imperial measurements. So much easier to divide by 100, 1000 etc than quarters of inches etc. strange ?

Many of us "progressive" Americans are more than willing to adopt the much more sensible metric system. Unfortunately we are held back by the "conservative" factions who believe "that's the way we've always done it" is a valid reason to resist new ideas. Unfortunately this is a problem throughout society and retards progress in almost every social paradigm.

Fortunately youth are typically more open to new ideas so there is hope that someday logic and science will prevail as the holders of antiquated beliefs die out and become the minority.

Of course this happens to some degree in all societies. The USA just seems more prone to it in some ways. I wonder; if the Roman Empire had never fallen, how much progress would have been heald back because of these closed minds?
(vid)

That's an interesting perspective. But I think the metric view assignment (in 2013) to progressives and conservatives is not true. As far as I can tell, both government parties simply haven't seen the final mandate as worth the cost of full conversion.

The characterization that conservatives don't believe anything until they see it, is about as accurate as saying that progressives believe things that have no basis in reality. Hang on, before anyone blows their stack, I believe there's partial truth in both. But in 2013, I think we have to be careful about generalities that are so broad. That Youth you mention is right here, middle aged people who grew up in the 60's and 70's watching stick-in-the-muds slug it out with starry-eyed-help-the-worlders. We all grew up, and liberals today are more in touch with reality, and conservatives are all about doing it better. They do disagree on the volume of government that is needed to help it all along. That IMO is the fundamental dichotomy, although the media loves to stuff all sorts of other things in there.

Back to metric. It would be really interesting to see some objective polling data regarding the two on metric - I might change my views on whether conservatives are causing the non-metrication today. But I talk to a lot of lefts and rights on the subject, and I just don't think it's true.

Anyway, it's true that early Americans held off from the metric system because it was a French thing (Americans were and still are individualists first) (sometimes to a fault). They also had some doubts on its ultimate globalization. That second issue is no longer an issue today, since it is fully adopted by most everyone else. In fact, it was no longer an issue a couple decades ago... and maybe that is the source of your comment on conservatism. But again, new generation of conservatives today.

Why isn't metric mandated in the U.S.A. today? Cost, of course. Note that metric is approved as a standard in the U.S.A., but not mandated. Mandating would remove old units from products and labeling, whereas continuing with status quo would allow both to be used. And they are -- ALL U.S. companies that deal with international partners (all of my clients) use dual measurements on all parts drawings. I haven't seen even small suppliers to these companies not using either all metric units or drawing with both units. In fact, my client companies have supplier mandates that they will label AT LEAST with SI units, and both are acceptable.

Back to cost. Allowing dual labeling was a simple addition for new products. But mandating metric-only would force a lot of re-drawing (removing inches and ounces) for currently shipping products. So continuing in a metric-approved dual-allowed mode has left the final conversion up to... The People. Mostly anyway. While U.S. companies (at least in high tech and/or those with international supply chains... which I believe has got to cover 80-90% of U.S.-located companies?) are practicing dual drawing parameters, two key areas have not changed: schools and road signs. I pick on these two because they can be government-forced, but this has not happened. I'm guessing that road signs are not forced because of potential litigation when accidents may be caused and will be blamed (even if they are not caused) by road sign changes. But litigation reform is a whole other discussion.

As for schools, again it would be interesting to see a poll on conservatives and progressive liberals, but I haven't seen one. I'm pretty conservative, and I would love to see metric mandated in schools. I think the 1998 failure of the Mars Orbiter (Lockheed Martin used data that was non-metric, even though the whole program was mandated metric) should have been the kick start to a U.S. mandate. (Well, and the guzillion dollar government program should have tested the bloody data in a simulation, duh.) I know that my engineering college threw us problem sets using mixed units, just so that we would be attentive and never make that mistake.

Anyway, a government mandate to schools and road signs would Seal the Deal for the general public. Companies should be allowed to grandfather their DUAL drawings and labels, and start using metric-only at the kick-in date. Easy peasy. (Oh, and no one should be allowed to say they were going 100mph because the sign said 100kph.)

That was all a long-winded (and typically so, for me) way of saying, Do you have some data that shows that today's conservatives are causing the lack of mandate for metric?

Manfred

I think we are just waiting for the oldest generation to be familiar with metrics. I remember my disappointment when the nice Canadian Trooper explained that it was 80 kilometers per hour and only gave me a warning and a weird look.
This was when I was 18 and just got on the QEW. In our defense there was only one 80 on the speedo then.

True enough Manfred.

I was meaning it more as a rib to Davy than anything else.
There is very little evidence to show that Republicans have greater resistance to SI than Democrats. There is the case where the Reagan administration blocked funding for a program which would have implimented SI for the national highway system but that was based on economic reasoning rather than to thwart progress. Unfortunately this is a common effect of republican/conservative policy.

But by definition:

con·ser·va·tive[ kən súrvətiv ]1.reluctant to accept change: in favor of preserving the status quo and traditional values and customs, and against abrupt change

vs.

pro·gres·sive[ prə gréssiv ]1.favoring reform: advocating social, economic, or political reform

or

lib·er·al[ líbbərəl ]1.broad-minded: tolerant of different views and standards of behavior in others

It's pretty clear.
(please don't think I'm being very serious here.}

BTW: Did you ever see Dan Aykaroyd's SNL skit "Decabet" ? He proposes a 10 letter alphabet.

I'll have to look that up, sounds hilarious!

I've always thought that, similar to my days playing D&D, sometime the choice of a name can mean EVERYTHING. There's still anothe definition of liberal, meaning overly generous and wasteful My wife never calls herself just a conservative; she is a Fiscal conservative.

I get the joke now, but one must be careful as readers often don't know the difference. These days, very much opinion is accepted as fact, from both sides. So don't anybody listen to me without verifying!

Manicfred

I don't think it is related to costs at all. If it was, the US would have switched years ago.

1) If you make a mandate for the metric system, it does not mean you have to stop printing and change all current imperial system. It means that all new ones, will be required to use the metric system (and if you already have both on the label, you have no costs at all).

2) The cost of changing a new label, it's nothing. It's like when you change a logo or a new product is done and you need to change a few letters. It's almost negligible.

3) The cost of sticking to the imperial system has been tremendous and it just keeps rising. Consider that you have to educate everyone twice: one for the imperial and one later one for the metric system. And it causes ton of confusion to people that gets one earlier than the other. It has actually cost tons of money on accidents and even deaths. Want some examples?
chemwiki.ucdavis.edu/?title=Analytical_C...sh_Conversion_Errors

Also tons of money is spent just converting between both systems, writing documentation and translating between both and making sure they match. It is just ridiculous.

The conclusion is that only one system should be used for all. At that point you have to decide which one is a better system and what you mean by better. Since it's just a scale conversion issue, everybody knows that multiplying and dividing by 10 is way easier for humans than, pick 3, 2, or 3.14. It is common sense the metric system is easier if you just spend 30 minutes on it without trying to do conversions to the imperial system you were raised on.

edition.cnn.com/TECH/space/9909/30/mars.metric.02/

To give you an example. Distances in metric systems, you just multiply or divide by 10

So
1 millimeter = 0.0393701 inches
what's 1 centimeter? 10 millimeters!
what's 1 decimeter? 10 centimeters
what's 1 meter? 10 decimeters
and you keep going up x10 = decameter, x10 = hectameter
and 1 kilometer? x10 again... so you have 1 kilometer = 1000 meters

you've just learned the full SI system, congratulations. It works like that for everything.

Now, try to do the same with the imperial system
1 inch
what's next? foot... the very convenient number of 12 inches
what's next? yard... also so easy to do math with on your head, because you know, 3 feet are a great number
what's next? chain... and defy all logic again, this time is 22 yards, because 12 and 3 were just easy enough
hey but not all hope is lost, we have 10 chains in a furlong
and why make math easy when you can make it convoluted? miles are just 8 furlongs.

Now, anyone using the SI system, can tell you in less than 1 second how many kilometers is 3578 meters (hey, divide by 1000 so 3.578 kilometers). You throw to us any metric number and we convert them on the spot without even a calculator.
Can you tell me in 1 second how many miles are 11738 feet for instance? Unless you have a supercomputer in your head, I doubt it. The answer: 2.22311 (so easy, right?)

You see, I studied in the US and I was forced to learn the imperial system. The ironic thing is that all people I found that defended the imperial system, didn't even know how many chains was on a furlong or inches on a yard and so on. Basically, they were just defending it because they didn't know the metric system. But they didn't know their own system either!

You want to have fun? ask the imperial system defenders about volume calculations, like ounce, gill, pint, quart and gallon. Just to convert between them without a paper.
Go and do the same with someone that knows SI. Piece of cake.

Area calculations? Same, SI multiply or divide by x100, Imperial System? get some seizures on the process.

I'm done

Agreed on all philosophical points. Costs on drawings can be significant for anyone not currently doing dual units, as drawings for shipping products would need to be redone with either SI only or dual units. Quality checks would have to have some equipment re-certified; even with the same measurement and tolerance, with units changed the equipment will be measuring under new jnits. Nothing too prohibitive (but definitely not zero or small). But I see what you're saying, the long term costs well exceed any short term pain.

So then it's just a question of schools. And things like road regulations and signage. Why doesn't the U.S. government just do it? I talk to a lot of friends about it - company owners, engineers, documentation control folks, and educators. No one says Don't Do It. Most say, yeah why haven't we done it? I just don't know any imperial system defenders!

Boils down to politics then. And I don't mean left and right. I mean that politicians want to support issues that get votes, and a Metric Mandate must not be polling strongly right now. Doesn't politics suck?

Manfred

i don't think is politics. I don't even think it's in any political agenda. Nobody goes around saying: If you vote for me, we will implement the SI! and the crowd roars in ecstasy

It's just that it's lot of work. People already "know" their system, why change it if it has no immediate benefit to the average person? Most just need to know your yards, ounces and inches and little more so they can follow football or baseball. At least for most people. Sad but true.

I've always liked metric better.

You know what else bothers me? The way we write dates. For instance, if you told an American to write today's date, they would probably write 11-6-13, or November 6th, 2013 (month-day-year). I'm not certain, but I believe the majority of the world writes in day-month-year format, so today's date would be 6-11-13, or 6 November 2013.

Americans would read that as June 11, 2013. See the problem here?

I'm glad that the US military has the sense to get with the program. I've been using metric for the past year, and it's just made everything so much easier.

I've noticed both of my children are metric. Work is either way you want. Most machines flip either way with a flick of the finger. Like Manfred says most Drawings are dual dimensioned. Lately I have noticed more pure metric. I was once the goto guy for metric in the past. Oh God it's metric give it to Kevy. Now most can use it. I learned metric at a young age because of my science background. I think we are closer to being metric than some think. Except for working on the old Camaro I hardly touch my English wrenches.
Steel sizes were a pain because there were no metric sheets to be had. They are common now and some of the close english sizes are now made metric for both. It won't be long....

Yes Z, I think we are agreeing. No one disagrees, but no one is compelled. And since this can only be set by a central leadership (government, eventually), it's political in that no politician will push SI unless it gets them votes. Right now, no one cares enough about it, or wants to so the work required, so no politician wants to be the figurehead for a lukewarm topic.


As for dates, I code the file names for all of my documents as yyyy-mm-dd, so that they sort chronologically. When it's just month and date, I do like dd-MMM (6-Nov), because it is more universally used. I try not to use just numbers when it's just month-date, because of the confusion that can result.

Manfred

TWO WORDS :

THOUGHT BARRIER

Davy Crockett wrote: How fast are my bullets going

Howdy ! Davy

i did some experiments with red baron in destroy the zep missions.
I shot one bullet on a zep just after i took off and counted the time it required for my points to increase.
this was a trial and error method . I couldnt figure out any other way to measure the speed of bullets.
I thought for a week and finally came up with this.

I conducted 7 experiments out of which 3 were sucessfull.
Time required was different in all the games, but it didnt vary much.
All of them were around 8 seconds. so i took time to be 8 sec.
The speed of zep was negligible as compared to the speed of the bullet so i have taken the zep to be stationary in the math.
so as i calculated before, the distance between the two bases is 4666.6667 meters.
The bullet took 8 seconds to reach it.

Therefore speed of bullet = 4666.6667/8 = 583.33334 m/s

the plane itself was travelling at 120 kmph = 33.33 m/s.

So we will have to subtract it from the speed = 550.00334 m/s.

Converting it to kmph we get ; 550.00334*18/5 = 1980.012 kmph.

I dont think its correct as i feel its too much for a bullet.

I think if we consider the speed of the zep, it may come near to 1950 kmph which is still too much .

CAN ANYONE CONFORM IT ??
ZUPERMAN ??


EDIT: Calculation are correct !!! Even my assumptions seem to hold
hammer_tool wrote:

Hi alll, a British 303 had a muzzle velocity of around 1850 ft per sec (sometimes less
depends on the mark, and projectile used). That's not too far from the numbers calculated
by Atharv so it's in the ballpark.

my calculations showed that the speed was 1950kmph = 1777.12 ft per sec.

THERE , U HAVE IT DAVY !!!!

your calculation is off
also think network lag, the moment you receive the points, the message when from your phone (shoot), to the server, confirmed it was a hit, and back to your phone. You have no way of knowing the lag in that trip so it's very hard to calculate the bullet speed that way.

damn it !!

U tell me the bullet speed. I did my best to calculate carrier speed and length and the bullet speed.
Hehe.....

What about ny carrier speed and length calculations ??

Are they correct zup ??


Edit : Another way of calculating bullet speed doesnt exist.

no matter what u do, bullet speed will always be wrong.

WELL............. SORRY DAVY I TRIED MY BEST

it's not always the same, since you also have to add your own speed. It's like throwing a rock standing up or while you are at a ferrari at 300km/h

On the second case, your initial speed is already 300km/h while the first case is 0

talking about carrier speed and length calculations ???

I know what u r saying.
I already considered it


How can u think that i dont know vectors??
Even after i asked a hydrostatics difficulty !!!

i agree i have not studied aerodynamics or streamlining. That will come later in my studies. Thats the reason i havent considered air drag in any of my calculations.

Zup. Please please tell me if ive made a mistake in vectors.
If i have, id like to kill my self

sorry Athan, I don't have time to check all the math. The bullet moves around 400 meters per second on average depending on drag, distance traveled and your current speed.

the carriers and such i've never took the time to measure them on meters or anything

Hi alll, a British 303 had a muzzle velocity of around 1850 ft per sec (sometimes less depends on the mark, and projectile used). That's not too far from the numbers calculated by Atharv so it's in the ballpark.

thanx hammer !

im happy now that my calculations were not very wrong.

1950kmph = 1777.12 ft per sec. !!!!


HEY DAVY , MY ANSWER IS CORRECT !!!!

We were talking about this in my engineering design class... My teacher said they tried to slowly incorporate SI instead of US customary in the states about 40 years ago, and in the parts of the country that did it, the change to SI made people frank out about a liter (instead of a gallon) of gas, distances being in meters, and such, so they changed back.

Some of the stuff has stayed the same, like when you go to the store, Americans dont buy a gallon of soda, they buy a 2 liter bottle of it. And cars have speeds in km/h.

Bumping a fun one for all the geeks out there.

(note: the topography has changed since Luna started this thread.)

Bless you for bringing this back up. I have been complaining that airspeed is relatively slower, and can't find prooof other than the obvious ponderous dance of elephants in the sky. But look at Luna's first post. Her error was that she assumed the speedo is in knots and then proceeded to time the run to derive a distance. Zup has shown the distance to be 4 KM base to base. I don't care what metrics the speedo is in, it's irrelavant for what we are about to study, as long as the metrics have not chnaged. I don't care what the distance is either. The important thing is that the distance hasn't chnaged, and she took a correct reading in time from base to base. Her flight time at 150 speed units from base to base WAS 112 seconds. In the training mission number 2, the Airco selected with one bomb goes this exact speed.

It now takes 2:00 minutes to make the same trip. I took off, flew behind the allied base, started the timer as I flew over it in line with the German base, flew direct to German base, then repeated the experiment, as the heights are different. Then repeated the roundtrip two more times and averaged. The same trip that Luna took at the same speedo reading she had now takes nearly twice the time to complete.

Relatively, the planes are slower now. Empirical proof, the planes are slower! THE PLANES ARE SLOWER! It's not the size that makes them seem slower, they are in fact slower.

Longrifle,



So there is a difference between Luna's results and yours of 8 seconds over a distance of 4km?


Luna' s results were 128 kmph
Your results were 120 kmph

So 6.25% slower.

What was the difference between your two averaged trips?

This question is more important than it seems because of the differences in elevation. Keep in mind that the differences have increased since Luna did her experiment. This can be an issue because the altimeter is not static. It reads your height above the ground below you. So more 'amplitude' of the topography means a less stable flight, ie. more climbing and descent. With a margin of only 6.25% there may be something subtle effecting the results.

Maybe you could try it by flying at a fixed point instead of trying to maintain a set altitude.

(See the altimeter in the pic at the top of Duckwing?)

Did you do the flight in the practice mission on in a real map? I'm not sure if the planes are upgraded in the practice mission, that could also account for a difference in time.

If a train left New York traveling 50 mph..............

[NLR] McFate wrote: Longrifle,



So there is a difference between Luna's results and yours of 8 seconds over a distance of 4km?


Luna' s results were 128 kmph
Your results were 120 kmph

So 6.25% slower.

What was the difference between your two averaged trips?

This question is more important than it seems because of the differences in elevation. Keep in mind that the differences have increased since Luna did her experiment. This can be an issue because the altimeter is not static. It reads your height above the ground below you. So more 'amplitude' of the topography means a less stable flight, ie. more climbing and descent. With a margin of only 6.25% there may be something subtle effecting the results.

Maybe you could try it by flying at a fixed point instead of trying to maintain a set altitude.

(See the altimeter in the pic at the top of Duckwing?)

All the flights were around the 2:00 mark (2:02, 1:58 there and back). Anything you "spend in altitude that would slow you down you get back dropping altitude, so as long as you finish at the same point the only difference should be the altitude from base to base. I did not maintain an altitude, rather flew the most direct line, which is a slight climb up to the german base and flight glide to the Allied base. As the starting height was just over the base and finished the same, there should not be a lot of difference there.

I assume that when Luna posted the bases had been reset to their current height (neither base has been moved since I started, and I remember the first post in this thread. Not completely scientific, but that's what I have as a reference.

I used the practice map and the Airco as it matches the original flight parameters (speed stated at 150, base to base). I wish someone had put up how fast they used to be able to turn a circle, laden and unladen, for comparison. I used my Android for this, so as to negate the Apple update problem. The flight was clean with no lag, as I was the only one in it. If I can find a game where I am the only player I'll try and run this scenario again to test the real map against the practice map, but I don't expect different results at the same speed (throttle to desired speed behind base, then turn over base and head out).

A few "real" MPH/KPH doesn't sound like much, but remember when you upgraded a speed bar and saw the difference? I swear the last major chnage took away a relative speed bar. Planes still look and feel ponderous. Bombing games kills are going higher and higher and taking longer and longer, some of that is due to leveling, but also because of big slow targets. If they present one at a time I'm plowing through them, but more than one on the screen and I find I'm shooting one and the other(s) are shooting my big slow plane just as fast. Once you shoot a string they stack up at the base in respawn, and when you get there you are usually facing four (because of leveling) and a big spray of tracers. The new 5 second rule lets them line you up before the immunity wears off and it looks like the fire button still works on takeoff, as I'm getting return fre before I can engage an aircraft leaving the base (immunity warnings in air when I'm seeing tracers from that aircraft).