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Criticalmass
Oct14-10, 11:26 PM
Hello all.

I need to model the trajectory of a bullet fired from a gun while being subjected to gravity, drag, and a wind vector.

It's been 10yrs since my last differential equations course and I can't remember much, except enough to think that they're required to solve this problem because of the drag issue. However, I can break out the old textbook to refresh myself on the basics if necessary.--

I have a ballistic coefficient for the bullet in question.

I intend to model the trajectory given varying initial heights above the ground, varying initial angles relative to the ground, and varying wind vectors. If it doesn't complicate things too much I intend to do it in three dimensions (x,y,z components separately is fine if necessary) but suppose I could get away with two dimensional if need be.

I have access to Mathematica and MathCad. Can anybody get me started? If not for the drag issue I'd be ok, but when it goes non-linear I've lost my touch.

Explanations as if I were a 3yr old would be great.

Can anybody help out with this? It would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.