How long does it take to reach terminal velocity?
We are frequently asked how fast someone would be falling if they fell from a certain height. Alternately we are asked, how long does it take (in feet or in seconds) for a falling person to reach terminal velocity. There is more detail on the math of falling elsewhere on this web site, but in short the best answer can be found in a book called “The Complete Book of Sky Sports” by Linn Emrich. It turns out that the math you need for calculating the speed of falls is calculus, and calculus is hard. The Emrich book has a couple of handy tables that remove the need for difficult equations. One table covers the time it takes to fall certain distances in a spread skydiver’s position. A recent question came in about a construction worker who fell 300 feet to his death. How fast was he falling? The Emrich table states that it would take about four seconds to fall 242 feet and five seconds to fall 366 feet. Given that the construction worker was probably not in a skydiver’s position, he may hav
