The Tiger gained the dubious distinction of being the first jet aircraft to shoot itself down.[8][9] On 21 September 1956, during a test-firing of its 20 mm (0.79 in) cannons, pilot Tom Attridge fired two bursts midway through a shallow dive. As the trajectory of the cannon rounds decayed, they ultimately crossed paths with the Tiger as it continued its descent, disabling the aircraft and forcing Attridge to crash-land the aircraft; he survived with a broken leg and multiple broken vertebrae.[10][11]
FYI if you’re unfamiliar with ballistics, as most people never think about it. When a bullet is fired out of a gun, it is dropping downward at the same speed as if you were holding in your hand and just let it go.
People who don’t normally shoot rifles never really stop to think about that. The forward velocity doesn’t keep the bullet from falling towards the ground any slower. Rifles usually fire the bullet at a slight upward trajectory because of this. So it may climb an inch and a half higher over the first 100 yards before it starts heading towards the ground.
Since he was decreasing in altitude (presumably at approximately a straight diagonal vector) and the bullets were traveling in an arc, I guess the linear distance travelled by the plane is less than that travelled by the bullets?
Either way, I think “out-ran” is appropriate here since the plane was necessarily ahead of the bullet on the horizontal plane since it was hit by the bullets.
He was going around 600 mph, fired the gun, then he dove down more and hit the afterburners to pick up speed and start leveling back out and was around 8 or 900 mph when he met up with his then, much slower than they were going bullets.
So he got faster and went low, while the bullets kept getting lower and slowing down from drag.
You don’t actually need to be ahead of them on the horizontal plane. The plane just needs to be able to cover the distance the bullet travels as it slows from drag before the bullet falls to the intercept point.
I was gonna say at least a portion of the plane had to be ahead of it unless it struck the very tip of the plane (which wouldn’t likely take it down).
But it is traveling at supersonic speeds. So yeah - the bullet could just be falling in front of the plane at that point and the plane could run into the bullet - so it’d be traveling faster than the bullet at that point, but the bullet would be in front of it. Weird lol
I doesn’t seem like catching up to me because catching up implies speed was increased to intercept, not distances were different followed by intercept.
If I fire a gun nearly perfectly straight up, run forward 10 feet and catch the bullet in my shoulder it wouldn’t feel right to say that I fired, ran fast enough to catch up to my bullet and shot myself.
You fire a bullet and it accelerates downward at 9.8m/s2 until it gets to some terminal velocity. It moves forward at some velocity with a braking acceleration that’s non-linear and gross. Result is a downward motion in a basically parabolic arc.
The plane, however, is accelerating downward faster than the bullet because of thrust, and also accelerating forward.
By the time drag has essentially stopped the bullet the plane is underneath it.
When phrased as “caught up” it makes it sound like the plane went as fast as the bullet, when the plane had a top speed of mach 1 and the bullet ~mach 3. They just took different paths.
Your entire line of logic is broken with how this happened, and how bullets work. Also, bullets start getting slower the moment they leave the barrel. A bullets terminal velocity is MUCH, MUCH, slower than when it leaves the barrel.
The plane shot bullets as it was arching down, so the plane was traveling under the bullets previously fired trajectory, and those bullets dropped down to where the plane wound up at because the bullets slowed enough to get there at the same time.
The f-11s weren’t crazy fast or anything. It was doing around 800mph when it happened.
There’s literally no other scenario to shoot yourself with a bullet shot towards the horizon (not straight up). A bullet has to be going much faster than a plane when it exits the barrel. A bullet has to start slowing down from drag the moment it leaves the barrel, so there’s no scenario that can exist where a plane can shoot itself in a way that isn’t catching up to a bullet that was getting slower.
I not sure how my logic is wrong when you then described exactly what I said.
We both understand how objects move. It’s a semantics question, not kinematics.
“Caught up” implies moving fast enough to close the distance in a persuit like fashion, to me at least.
It’s not catching up with someone if you take a shortcut and wait for them to arrive.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grumman_F-11_Tiger
How is that not catching up to them?
FYI if you’re unfamiliar with ballistics, as most people never think about it. When a bullet is fired out of a gun, it is dropping downward at the same speed as if you were holding in your hand and just let it go.
People who don’t normally shoot rifles never really stop to think about that. The forward velocity doesn’t keep the bullet from falling towards the ground any slower. Rifles usually fire the bullet at a slight upward trajectory because of this. So it may climb an inch and a half higher over the first 100 yards before it starts heading towards the ground.
Since he was decreasing in altitude (presumably at approximately a straight diagonal vector) and the bullets were traveling in an arc, I guess the linear distance travelled by the plane is less than that travelled by the bullets?
Either way, I think “out-ran” is appropriate here since the plane was necessarily ahead of the bullet on the horizontal plane since it was hit by the bullets.
He was going around 600 mph, fired the gun, then he dove down more and hit the afterburners to pick up speed and start leveling back out and was around 8 or 900 mph when he met up with his then, much slower than they were going bullets.
So he got faster and went low, while the bullets kept getting lower and slowing down from drag.
You don’t actually need to be ahead of them on the horizontal plane. The plane just needs to be able to cover the distance the bullet travels as it slows from drag before the bullet falls to the intercept point.
I was gonna say at least a portion of the plane had to be ahead of it unless it struck the very tip of the plane (which wouldn’t likely take it down).
But it is traveling at supersonic speeds. So yeah - the bullet could just be falling in front of the plane at that point and the plane could run into the bullet - so it’d be traveling faster than the bullet at that point, but the bullet would be in front of it. Weird lol
I doesn’t seem like catching up to me because catching up implies speed was increased to intercept, not distances were different followed by intercept.
If I fire a gun nearly perfectly straight up, run forward 10 feet and catch the bullet in my shoulder it wouldn’t feel right to say that I fired, ran fast enough to catch up to my bullet and shot myself.
You fire a bullet and it accelerates downward at 9.8m/s2 until it gets to some terminal velocity. It moves forward at some velocity with a braking acceleration that’s non-linear and gross. Result is a downward motion in a basically parabolic arc.
The plane, however, is accelerating downward faster than the bullet because of thrust, and also accelerating forward.
By the time drag has essentially stopped the bullet the plane is underneath it.
When phrased as “caught up” it makes it sound like the plane went as fast as the bullet, when the plane had a top speed of mach 1 and the bullet ~mach 3. They just took different paths.
Your entire line of logic is broken with how this happened, and how bullets work. Also, bullets start getting slower the moment they leave the barrel. A bullets terminal velocity is MUCH, MUCH, slower than when it leaves the barrel.
The plane shot bullets as it was arching down, so the plane was traveling under the bullets previously fired trajectory, and those bullets dropped down to where the plane wound up at because the bullets slowed enough to get there at the same time.
The f-11s weren’t crazy fast or anything. It was doing around 800mph when it happened.
There’s literally no other scenario to shoot yourself with a bullet shot towards the horizon (not straight up). A bullet has to be going much faster than a plane when it exits the barrel. A bullet has to start slowing down from drag the moment it leaves the barrel, so there’s no scenario that can exist where a plane can shoot itself in a way that isn’t catching up to a bullet that was getting slower.
I not sure how my logic is wrong when you then described exactly what I said.
We both understand how objects move. It’s a semantics question, not kinematics.
“Caught up” implies moving fast enough to close the distance in a persuit like fashion, to me at least.
It’s not catching up with someone if you take a shortcut and wait for them to arrive.
Well he did pursue them and catch up, sooo…
I would presume that that distinction would belong to the world war one planes that fired their guns through their own propeller?