How Top Gun Maverick’s Mach 10.5 stunt is physically impossible.
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- Опубликовано: 6 фев 2025
- Kinetic energy, the energy a body in motion has by virtue of being in motion, depends on the speed of the object. If you want to imagine the deleterious effects of an object in motion coming to a sudden stop, think about this: A car traveling at 60 mph has four times the kinetic energy of the same car traveling at 30 mph. The faster car is four times more likely to result in destruction if it crashes.
Neil deGrasse Tyson suggests thinking about what happens when you stick your arm out the window of a car at 60 miles per hour. It blows back. “Imagine doing 800 miles an hour and what that will do-it starts ripping you apart.”
The USAF have tested and built planes specifically for this reason, and they eject the whole cockpit and parachute to the ground.
The plane STILL would have immediately incinerated and he STILL would have been liquidated by the Gforce
@@vitsadelholepotentially but you would think that would use an escape type pod where the cockpit punches out with a heat shield underneath help reduce the speed followed by one to three Droge chutes followed by the main or use the pod to slow down just enough that the pilot could punch out from their at a slower speed
@@jeremycox2983 or more likely the movie just said f*ck physics go patriotism and then relied on its dickriding brain dead fans who have no knowledge on the subject to defend a very obviously impossible stunt
Yea.. 111 cockpit was designed for that but dident always work
Yep, the F-111 also has an ejectable cockpit for the two man crew. Mav made it cuz of kick ass engineering."Danger Zone..."
Scott Manley has done an amazing video on this debunking this. He could've survived the mach 10 ejection easily
Crew of space shuttle Columbia were exposed to the air stream at 200,000 ft going Mach 16 and we're shredded. Tom would have suffered a similar fate going slower at a denser altitude.
Ummm yeah no that would kill you. G forces alone
@@armandomercado2248 The crew most likely died due to sudden cabin depressurisation as the actual breakup was not lethal. Their remains were mostly intact.
@@Julio_Tortillia True of the Challenger accident, not true of the Columbia accident.
@@armandomercado2248 The very wikipedia page for the Columbia accident states that the forces exerted during the breakup were not lethal.
Actually we don’t know how long after his engines shut down until he ejected. He may have decreased in speed and altitude significantly before ejecting.
his engines didn't "shut down", they blew up along with the whole ship, very suddenly.
We know exactly what speed he ejected at, the screens went blank when he ejected, if he stayed in the cockpit u till he slowed down the screens wouldn’t go blank
@@poofer7600 actually he does shut them down, or at least pulls them back to idle, they show it VERY quickly, maybe a frame or two. Find the scene on here and run it at 0.25x speed.
It only happened because of special effects. It is made up fiction.
Exactly. A couple of things they aren’t considering in this video. Keep in mind I know nothing about this topic. I’m just imagining possibilities. 1) the aircraft would have slowed down greatly by the time he ejected. 2) he was also wearing a hybrid spacesuit that was probably designed for ejecting at a high rate of speed. And 3) when he ejects, the entire cockpit probably separated before ejecting him out a lower speed and altitude
Scott Manley has debunked this debunk. Given the altitude there plenty of opportunity for a survivable deceleration and a temperature that’s entirely survivable.
He also ejected hundreds of thousands of ft in the air, meaning little to no atmosphere for air resistance
At altitudes like the Aurora would be flying at Mach 10.5, the air density is very low. What would be important would be the indicated airspeed, or how hard the air presses on a surface pointed toward the direction of travel. At 125,000 ft at Mach 10.5 the air outside would only be putting as much pressure on an ejecting Tom as ejecting at 414 knots at sea level, something countless pilots have survived without any problems. So maybe OP lady and Neal (he’s already been corrected on this) need to actually check the science before they try to check the science…
Damn, over mach 10 and the air pressure only having the effect on him relative to an ejection at a smidge over 400 knots? Not calling bullshit but I’d just really like to know how you arrived at these numbers..
@@jordannewsom4578 Just use a IAS calculator.
IF that was true, and I AM saying it Is NOT, then WTH does the space shuttle suffer from so much heating and need those tiles to keep the HIGH HEAT from making the craft disintegrate?
IOW your theory is BULLSHIT.
In fact, the crew of the SR-71 which travels much slower than the fictional Tom Cruise aircraft, still gets so hot that the crew will warm their special meals by placing them against the windscreens which are extremely HOT.
Also, the skins of the aircraft of the SR71 I'd corrugated metal that leaks fuel on the ground but at speed it is so hot it expands and the corrugated metal expands, effectively sealing the wing tanks.
So tell us again how the Aurora or whatever is traveling SO fast that the wind creates some mythical shield that encapsulates the aircraft that shields it from the excessive heat?
I'd like to get a physics degree from the same Higher Education program school as you must've gotten yours from.
We could build interstellar vessels out of bubble gum, I'm certain.
@@Julio_Tortillia boo yah!!!
@@Julio_Tortilliawhat is IAS CALCULATOR?
NDT also spent time to figure out how much Thor's hammer weighs and he still was wrong.
Check out B-58 Hustler or the XB-70 Valkyrie. Both designed to with Mach speed ejection
This has already been brought up..
We have no idea how long it was till he ejected.
If you look back in the history of the SR 71, there has been successful ejectisons. Even though the black bird was going more than Mach 3.
Pilots know When, and when Not to eject.
A couple of things you aren’t considering. 1) the aircraft would have slowed down greatly by the time he ejected. 2) he was also wearing a hybrid spacesuit that was probably designed for ejecting at a high rate of speed. And 3) when he ejects, the entire cockpit probably separated before ejecting him out a lower speed and altitude
The F-111 had an ejection pod that ejected the entire crew in a closed pod.
It was used once and remains on display.
So if the DarkStar had a pod ejection system, he would have survived just fine.
Exactly, people don’t realize this, in ksp I made a similar system, I made a mach 5 jet, and made it so the crew capsule could be ejected, assuming the capsule can decelerate enough, its very plausible to survive that
BS, there is no such pod in any aircraft apart from F-111. BS Bs Bs
Bro doesn’t understand aviation technical advancements
Actually the plane could have been designed to have the entire cockpit eject so the pilot would be protected
No. The drag from the cockpit alone would cause insane acceleration. Ejection seats alone can cripple spines. With added forces, he’s not walking around for a long time
Just like the f111,b1, b2, and b52. It works
@@sjh199Ejection seats cripple spines only from the 20G force of the rocket motor, not from the deceleration of the seat. And no, deceleration would not be intense enough to kill you, in fact, it may not be intense enough to even make you black out. You’d probably get a fraction of a second of 20G from again, the rocket motor, before a manageable decel of around 5-6G for another second or so, and then finally you’d decel from that until coming back to 0G and then back to 1G as the chute deploys
@@GrapeFlavoredAntifreeze Most ejections happen in subsonic speeds. There's only a couple cases where it was done over match 1, and they weren't very promising.
Darkstar reached mach 10.4 before exploding. Not only the insane amount of heat would fry the pilot instantly, but also the deceleration forces would exceed (calculation takes into consideration of the fractional air pressure)551Gs.
The calculation:
( while I did use GPT4, it used python code to accurately make calculations, and I checked its math. While the process I took was a little crude, even if the accuracy of the calculations are severely put into question, it will exceed the maximum amount of force a human body can handle. The calculated result is 400,000 newtons, which is 100 times the force required to destroy the spine / skull)
You will only calculate the Instant deceleration.
based on a reasonable terminal velocity estimate of 80, it would mean the gravitational force, which would be 700 newtons (average human man weight being 70 kilos), would equal to the aerodynamic drag acting upon the body.
You can use 700n = drag at 80m/s to estimate the drag forces at mach 10
ChatGPT
To calculate the instant deceleration when ejecting at Mach 10, we will first estimate the aerodynamic drag at that speed using the given information. You've mentioned that at a terminal velocity of 80 m/s, the gravitational force (700 N for a 70 kg person) equals the aerodynamic drag force. We can use this to estimate the drag coefficient.
The drag force (FdFd) can be calculated using the drag equation:
Fd=12⋅ρ⋅v2⋅Cd⋅AFd=21⋅ρ⋅v2⋅Cd⋅A
where:
FdFd is the drag force,
ρρ is the air density (approximately 1.225 kg/m³ at sea level),
vv is the velocity (80 m/s for terminal velocity),
CdCd is the drag coefficient,
AA is the cross-sectional area of the body.
From the given information, we can calculate Cd⋅ACd⋅A since we know FdFd (700 N), ρρ, and vv at terminal velocity. After finding Cd⋅ACd⋅A, we can then calculate the drag force at Mach 10 and use this to estimate the deceleration.
Let's start by calculating Cd⋅ACd⋅A using the terminal velocity conditions.
The calculated product of the drag coefficient (CdCd) and the cross-sectional area (AA) is approximately 0.179.
Now, using this value, we can estimate the drag force at Mach 10. Recall that Mach 10 is approximately 3430 m/s. We'll use this velocity to calculate the drag force at Mach 10, and then we'll use this force to estimate the deceleration experienced by the pilot.
The drag force at Mach 10 is given by the same drag equation:
Fd=12⋅ρ⋅v2⋅Cd⋅AFd=21⋅ρ⋅v2⋅Cd⋅A
Let's calculate this.
The estimated drag force at Mach 10 is approximately 1,286,786 N (Newtons). This is the force acting against the direction of motion due to aerodynamic drag.
To estimate the deceleration experienced by the pilot, we use Newton's second law, which states that force equals mass times acceleration (F=m⋅aF=m⋅a). Rearranging this formula to solve for acceleration (aa), we get:
a=Fma=mF
where:
FF is the drag force (1,286,786 N),
mm is the mass of the pilot (assuming 70 kg for an average human).
Let's calculate the deceleration.
At an altitude of 45,000 feet (approximately 13,716 meters), the air density is lower than at sea level. This decrease in air density affects the drag force calculation. Air density decreases with altitude, so the drag force at 45,000 feet will be less than it would be at sea level.
The standard atmospheric model (like the International Standard Atmosphere, ISA) can be used to estimate the air density at this altitude. At 45,000 feet, the air density is approximately 0.3639 kg/m³ (compared to 1.225 kg/m³ at sea level).
Let's recalculate the drag force at Mach 10 at 45,000 feet altitude using this adjusted air density. Then, we will estimate the deceleration experienced by the pilot using the recalculated drag force.
The estimated drag force at Mach 10 at an altitude of 45,000 feet is approximately 382,254 N (Newtons). This reduced force is due to the lower air density at this altitude.
Now, we'll use this force to estimate the deceleration experienced by the pilot. Again, using Newton's second law:
a=Fma=mF
where FF is the drag force (382,254 N) and mm is the mass of the pilot (70 kg, as assumed previously). Let's calculate the deceleration.
The estimated deceleration experienced by a pilot ejecting from an aircraft at Mach 10 at an altitude of 45,000 feet is approximately 5461 m/s².
This deceleration is extremely high and well beyond the threshold of what the human body can survive. For reference, the human body can typically withstand up to about 9 g's (where 1 g ≈ 9.81 m/s²) for a short duration without losing consciousness. The calculated deceleration is many times greater than this threshold, indicating the extreme danger and improbability of surviving such a scenario.
@@GrapeFlavoredAntifreeze seems like my comment was not properly registered.
TLDR: decel from drag is 560Gs. And the force would be 100times the necessary amount to crack a skull/spine
She missed the classic design rule:if u build hypersonic plane u build the ejector arrangement as well
Niel was complaining that the stars in the night sky of the titanic movie weren't accurate, the guy loves to hear himself speak
I saw a tweet once about him saying that Santa would have to use near light-speed and wormholes to visit every house and make it around the world in one night.
And someone commented “He’s magic, you dumbass”
I mean at that altitude he was probably going at 900km/h or 550mph of IAS. totally survivable
1st, at higher altitudes, the speed of sound is slower, so mach 10.5 at 30 km is ~6600 mph/10000 kmh.
2nd, the air density at ~30 km altitude is so low, that going 6000 knots is equivalent to going ~350 knots at sea level in terms of air resistance so anyone who ejects has a very good chance of surviving and then slowing down as they go into the lower parts of the atmosphere as ejections have happened at such speed and the pilots have survived.
I'm sure you are the type to tell a child he's adopted at his Birthday party.
People like to make this argument while completely ignoring the fact that he is over 100k feet. There wouldn't be enough air at that altitude to cause any major G-forces or heating.
Yeah they eject a cockpit capsule they don’t use a seat also people have survived supersonic ejections before there’s tons of precedent however not at Mach 10 to be fair
This is a good example of 'textbook knowledge.'
The total kinetic energy doesn't get converted instantly. Doesn't matter if it's 1 or 10, or 10,000 tons of equivalent TNT, all that matters is how fast the energy transfer is. It's the same difference between going from 100kmh to a standstill by braking for 10 seconds or by hitting a concrete wall. Both events have the same energy potential, but the results differ immensely.
Air resistance at that altitude would also have made the ejection survivable easily even without a protective shell.
Is there not a chance there was time for him to slow down???
Not gonna let physician spoil my love for the movie😂.
We already have a talking raccoon blasting plasma cannon in space.
When you read physics upto 10 class
😅😅😅😅
😅😅😅
Internet aviation expert Scott Manley and his fan base would beg to differ.
Must be some classified tech capsule that can withstand kinetic energy of that magnitude
Pretty sure he also said that at his altitude the impact is far reduced than what we would typically imagine due to the thinness of the atmosphere
Ejecting pods is a thing.😮😮😮😮😮
This speaker is correct. All of Top Gun Maverick is a fantasy. The end. (USAF combat veteran, 36 years, retired.)
The cockpit would have had advanced heat shielding, similar to the sr71 which allows the pilot to eject safely and slow down to a speed where the parachutes could open safely
An SR-71 pilot survived in only a pressure suit when his plane disintegrated at Mach 3.1. I don’t think it would be stretch to think someone could survive a Mach 10 ejection in a capsule.
Which leads to the speculation that the rest of the movie is his life flashing before his eyes as he's about to die
Maverick didn't survive. The whole film is his life of regret re imagined as it flashes before him in his life to death transition. Re think the whole impossible plot through this lens and it makes more sense and a better story
that why black screen was shown at that moment
I sadly haven’t seen maverick yet so I don’t know all the conditions, but having whatever amount of kinetic energy isn’t necessarily bad. It’s just how fast you convert it into different forms of energy like thermal which is a product of air friction. If he is at a high enough altitude air friction might be small enough to make it survivable.
Physics doesn’t apply for Tom. He’s gonna live forever until he makes top gun part 100😂😂😂
The only thing you may have wrong here is that you are supposing that he ejected right away. Perhaps if the movie had been extended a few more minutes, it could have shown the remains of the aircraft in a free fall tumble, at which the speed would be decreasing exponentially until the pilot knew he might be entering an envelope of speed conducive to exposure of the pilot to the atmosphere. Another thought could also be that the plane may have had an escape pod not unlike the F-111 had, with rockets and parachutes to slow descent. This part of the story may have needed a bit more explanation. It was meant to give the illusion of "what exactly did happen?" when he walked into that mountain café.
Escape pod?
If they figured out how to get to mach 10, don't think they didn't figure out when this happens.
Another comment mentioned that at this speed and altitude
It’s be like ejecting at 400ish knots. Survivable
Plus when you have military ejection seats for this kind of jet. It’s probably built to eject the cockpit and protect the pilot
Cool to know science wise, but man, it's Top Gun, and a damn good sequel, because it held on to the impossible energy the original had 😄
Perhaps the plane dramatically slowed down after it lodt thrust. The ejection was inside a capsule to further protect. Just a thought
What Tyson didn't consider, was, that at that altitude and speed, the dynamic pressure is actually lower than at Mach 1 at sea level, and pilots have survived ejecting at Mach 1 close to the ground. The biggest problem for Maverick would have been frictional heating. So, as long as the ejection system has a way to protect the pilot from heat, it is very much surviveable.
He was in a capsule. The whole cockpit capsule that departs the aircraft and shields him.
Bruh everyone and their ancestoral cave man knew that Maverick realistically wasn't gonna be walking that one off. But it looked cool as hell.
It was Mach 10.4, not 10.5......which is perfectly survivable!
The whole cockpit eject 💡
The old B -58 had a capsule for the crew to eject at super sonic speeds…. I am sure Darkstar would have a similar safety capability
You forget. This is MAVERICK !
What if someone told you that not all ejections had to be designed exactly the same way.
Yeah well you guys didn’t take plot armor into account. Take that science
I want to believe Tyson, but he also says men can be women, so I'm not really sure about anything he says...
If you watched the movie, you would see the capsule separated from the aircraft thus slowing down to a ejection point!
Engineers ruin popular mechanics title when they designed a capsule to eject at high speeds 😂
It’s Tom cruise. He ejected at Mach 10.5 and none of you will ever make me believe otherwise
Come on Babe'
The first thing a Grade A pilot would do is--
Slow down!
We would never eject at max. Speed.
Every one thinks they are a Rocket scientist...
But you need to think like a pilot
Good thing it isn't standard ejection like from an f-16. You can tell in the movie it's more of an "ejection pod" and if they could build a plane that goes Mach 10.5 I bet they could make a "pod" that can withstand twice that
Whenever something like that happens in the movies and I see it I turn to my wife she says “don’t”.
Didn't see it yet.
Did they leave out the part where he
puts on his MAGIC flight suit? 🧙♂️
As stated elsewhere, the ejection would have been an enclosed pod.
B1A, not the B1B ejects the entire crew at once. Which happened and killed the Rockwell test pilot
They didn't show the ejection in the movie.....so that leaves the chances of doubt that the whole cabin can be ejected to reduce the drag force and then ejecting the pilot at a relatively slower speed
TYSON'S EYEBROWS DOING 10.5.
Unless a capsule was in place that would break apart and fall statically until safe to eject from capsule.
Th Fandom Is strong in this one. I actually like how we stood up to know-it-alls
Don't quote Neil. There could have been an escape pod( F-111 style). OR he could have waited to eject once the airspeed came down. The movie doesn't show HOW he bailed out.
Since it wasn’t actually shown, how do we know that the ejection didn’t occur until after the plane had lost a huge chunk of its forward momentum and elevation?
Goddamit Maverick - you break the laws of physics just one more time and you’ll be flying a 737 full of drunken stag weekenders out of Southend.
Dude put 100kg of tnt like it was a nuke, that’s an explosion about the sive a a house or 2
I always assumed that he rode the wreckage down to a lower altitude and speed before punching out.
Well it's a good thing it's movie. Hopefully no one says hold my beer and watch this. 😂
Obviously Dr. Tyson didn't take into account that it's never stated Maverick actually ejected at that speed nor the possibility the aircraft might have had a capsule built for such a purpose.
In his defense, Dr. Tyson stated what would happen to the human body had the pilot under direct exposure at such speeds. But since the movie was indeed fiction in technical as well as storyline attributes, he should have taken those factors into consideration.
I wouldn't call it an ejection. I would call it an unscheduled this assembly of the aircraft at high velocity.😂
What a clown, no pilot ejects at that speed without the cockpit encapsulating them.
What one might call in military jargon “pink mist”
First of all you shouldn't watch a movie with real world physiological concept cuz it ruins the movie😢
Ndt thrusting his weight yet again. He fails to realize he ejected in a pod, and didn't necessarily eject at Mach 10.5
That’s saying he ejected at the point of Mach 10.5 when the cameras cut, it didn’t show him ejecting at that point he may have slowed to a safe enough speed to eject
The ghost of Chuck Yeager has entered the chat.
Neil deGrasse Tyson never served, let alone served in the Air Force, let alone ejected from a plane. One of my father’s cousins ejected from a B-58 Hustler in a flat spin, and did not die, despite expectations at the time. People live, sometimes.
The airforce has made ejectable cockpits in the past to protect people from high speed ejections also we dont know the plane’s altitude air is much thinner at high altitude so the deceleration would be much slower than at ground level. So yes maverick has a ton of kinetic energy but if you decelarate slowly thats not a problem. Astronauts orbit at 17500 mph but when they go back to earths they slowly decelerate so its not a problem
They probably had a system to eject the entire cockpit like the F111
Wasnt there some theory of him actually dieing and the rest of the movie was his journey to the afterlife, and getting closure with Rooster?
Physics also ruins it because you can't speed up while turning yet he does that somehow while also remaining inside the United States while traveling fast enough he can't.
You're going to hate what happens when you step on the gas in your car while turning. Guess what... you go faster!
I can play some physics law with those pairs wow!
Fighter Plane?
He would’ve ejected in an escape pod(the entire sealed cockpit)
Isn't it mandatory for fighter jets to have reliable ejection systems in case of emergency situations that require the pilot to eject safely?
Don’t ever question Maverick….
Surprised Neil took a break from kissing his mirror long enough to watch the movie
Yet most of these people have probably never even flew a commercial aircraft.
Did not see him eject in the movie. Just the plane coming apart. Maybe it had slowed prior to ejecting.
Actually we can go back way further and accept that this kid Pete Mitchell would have never become a naval officer, let alone an aviator, not with his lone Wolf attitude.
That matter, I never understood why they had to fabricate this keeping Rooster out of the academy bologna has the grist between he and Maverick. I think he could easily still be bitter because Maverick got his father killed.
I certain that the as the aircraft came apart its speed was far slower. Also, the altitude of the ejection was in extremely thin air. That doesn’t mean he would have survived, but it wasn’t Mach 10+.
You're all assuming he ejected into atmosphere.. very likely a craft like this would have an ejection pod like the entire cockpit would eject
Well this is embarrassing. This is what happens when a physicist never talks to an engineer.
He escaped in a capsule, see the thing about movies is you can just make shit up
You made a mistake. Speed of sound is a function of altitude. Without knowing his altitude, you can't tell the speed in mph. You are correct about not being able to eject without injuries at that speed, though.
It didn't really show the ejection it could have been a capsule ejection that if made to take those forces would be completely survivable with little to no injury. As the f111 I believe it was, was designed with
Just having energy wouldn't kill you.. air resistance may be an issue. Ejection force may be an issue. The human body can travel at mach 60 without issues.
There's an old saying, it's not the fall the kills you, it's hitting the ground.
If you truely believe that then sign up for it in real life. The body can barely handle a few Gs let alone 60 🤣 you pass out befor you even hit 8
@@3hoursago596 I think you are mixing Gs and mach? That or your saying that the speed is causing Gs... I mean, the speed isn't, the air air resistance is. Either way, traveling at that speed is the problem.
Neil DeGrasse Tyson wasn't given enough swirlies as a youngster.