Max TOF

[Brians356]

There are exterior ballistics programs like Sierra's Infinity which will calculate maximum "vertical fire" or maximum altitude a bullet will reach fired vertically. They will also calculate maximum horizontal range attainable and the bore elevation angle to attain it.

Will any also calculate maximum time of flight (TOF) attainable?
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[Brians356]

Never thought I'd stump this bunch.
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[JPeelen]

Maximum time of flight is achieved by firing vertically upwards, because all available velocity is directed opposite to gravity, which is the limiting factor.

It is not achieved at maximum range, because if you increase elevation further, the range becomes smaller again, but time of flight keeps growing.

An ordinary ballistics program cannot compute a realistic time of flight for a vertical shot, because mostly the bullet will come down base first and it has no drag data for this situation.
Lack of realistic drag data for low speeds also makes the maximum range computation only a rough estimate.

 

[Brians356]

Thanks. Excellent explanation and it makes sense to me.
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