Anyone good with physics here? Need some math on GoldenEye 007

[naisho]

Me and a friend were talking about the bike + plane intro scene in GoldenEye 007, when Bond jumps off the cliff of a Russian secret laboratory from a motorbike in pursuit of an unmanned airplane.

Obviously this is next to impossible in real life, as you have a ton of different variables like human error, reaction, plenty of things to make this stunt 99% virtually impossible if it actually was. Not to mention the fact that what's shown in movies are fake as well.

But I wanted to check mathematically if this was even at the slightest possible.

Basically what happens is:

An unmanned plane is falling at neutral speed off the cliff - Bond leaps off a bike about 1-2 seconds behind it. Would it have been remotely possible with physics, that he would have reached the cockpit of the plane before it hit the ground?

I would assume the Terminal Velocity equation applies in here? If I remember back correctly from intro physics class, there was a formula to calculate the speed of an object falling after a given time.
Off Wiki, that seems to be:

What we do know from this video:
- The plane was rolling off the cliff at least within 5-10mph, any higher, the fight out of the plane would've had a different scenario.
- Bond leaps about 1.8 seconds right after the plane falls off the cliff
- Let's assume the motorbike was going around 30-50MPH for that short period of time.. so maybe 40MPH to work on average.
- Bond looks like he's about 150-200 feet away from the cockpit during the leap.

Lets say we take the time before you hit the ground variable away -- is it even remotely possible that a human can reach the cockpit of an unmanned airplane falling at neutral speed in midair using gravity?

 

[Berry]

My motorcycle is capable of reaching 65 mph in that distance. Would that speed translate into horizontal distance (Over shooting the plane by half a mile) or into vertical speed (Meaning he would fall toward the plane faster)?

Hey, Myth Busters!

 

[Jiro]

Lets say we take the time before you hit the ground variable away -- is it even remotely possible that a human can reach the cockpit of an unmanned airplane falling at neutral speed in midair using gravity?

thing is - we don't live in vacuum environment otherwise this thing won't work. both of them would be 100-200 feet away forever. but when falling... any object encounter air resistance.. which is why a feather would fall slower than a rock but in vacuum environment - both will fall at same time, same speed.

in this 007 case - yes it's doable but obviously difficult. you can just simply adjust your posture to speed up... the plane didn't (falling at neutral speed).

 

[Jiro]

My motorcycle is capable of reaching 65 mph in that distance.

what kind of bike is it?

Would that speed translate into horizontal distance (Over shooting the plane by half a mile) or into vertical speed (Meaning he would fall toward the plane faster)?

Hey, Myth Busters!

that speed would only translates into horizontal distance if going on horizontal surface - you'll only end up overshooting it but that's easily fixed by adjusting your posture to align up with the plane.... assuming it's just bottomless pit

 

[Berry]

what kind of bike is it?

The first 650 Suzuki ever made. Just an old rice bike but it still has the oomph.

 

[naisho]

Here's a couple more replies from different people I asked elsewhere

It's unlikely that the plane would go into a near vertical dive on it's own, it would probably go into a shallow descent with near horizontal flight, assuming neutral trim on the elevator.

If the plane did go into a near vertical dive, it's speed would increase to the point that the wings would come off. The plane would fall much faster than the skydiver even if the wings somehow managed to stay attached.

In order to do the stunt for the movie, they had to used a small parachute attached to the tail of the plane to keep it's speed near the same as the skydiver, and to keep it in a near vertical dive. This was done at a high altitude, and the skydiver only attempted to get close to the opening in the side of the plane. The rest was special effects.

no lets say the plane is traveling at 200+mph. and Bond 20mph. by the time he gets on the plane and gets in the cocpit pulls the stick up its to late (I am also juding this is a high cliff). its all camera tricks, and there is a guy controlling the plane you just can't see him (its being controlled by a controller on ground like the ones the military uses). and bond saves the plane just photo stunts my freind

Both failed to provide any mathematical concept of the process.. Which is what I'm still trying to figure out. Guess I'll bust out that physics textbook soon to figure this out once and for all.

 

[Jiro]

The first 650 Suzuki ever made. Just an old rice bike but it still has the oomph.

gotta love those old bikes

 

[Maria]

Blood rushin' and hair raisin' !

 

[Jiro]

Here's a couple more replies from different people I asked elsewhere

Both failed to provide any mathematical concept of the process.. Which is what I'm still trying to figure out. Guess I'll bust out that physics textbook soon to figure this out once and for all.

excellent point there but i'll leave that to scientists to figure it out for me. i guess i'll write a letter to mythbuster

 

[naisho]

Did some heavy physics searching + researching in my college physics book.

Good info off a UC San Diego Physics class lecture in Spring'08. Looks like I didn't have to do too much searching in the textbook.

Basically seems to be the hard fact that the Terminal Velocity of a human goes up to a max of 70 meters/sec. I knew TV had to be in the formula somewhere.

Did some researching on the skydiving @ 70m/s maximum part: holds true via facts here:
Speed of a Skydiver (Terminal Velocity)
Tipler, Paul A. College Physics. New York: Worth, 1987: 105. "For a skydiver with parachute closed, the terminal velocity is about 200 km/h." Avg Speed - 56m/s

Ardley, Neil. Dictionary of Science: 2000 Key Words Arranged Thematically. London: Dorling Kindersley, 1994: 57. "The terminal velocity of this skydiver is about 124 mph (200 kph)." Avg Speed - 55.6 m/s

Relating to Velocities. Cockpit Physics. United States Air Force Academy Physics Department. "Skydiver 54 m/s" Avg Speed - 54m/s

Bueche, Fredrick. Principles of Physics. New York: McGraw Hill, 1977: 64. "The more compact and dense the object, the higher its terminal velocity will be. Typical examples are the following: raindrop, 25 ft/s, human being, 250 ft/s." Avg Speed - 76 m/s

Falling Feather. Science Snacks. Exploratorium. "The terminal velocity of a falling human being with arms and legs outstretched is about 120 miles per hour (192 km per hour) — slower than a lead balloon, but a good deal faster than a feather!" Avg Speed - 53 m/s

For the plane's weight, I used NASA's TV Calculator
Terminal Velocity

I have no clue what the actual plane was, so I used a Piper Cherokee for comparison - off wikipedia:
Piper Cherokee - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Empty weight: 1201 lb (544 kg)

Drag coefficient in short, is the aerodynamics of the object falling that will increase or decrease from size, speed, and flying altitude.
Zero-lift drag coefficient - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
On that page it listed the values for a similar small manned aircraft, so I used that number of 0.0378.

Cross sectional area of a small sized airplane - I had no clue until I looked around at lengths in meters. Seems to be that a small size plane like that is within 60-80 sq. meters, the size of a small apartment. That would be around 400-450 sq feet, so I put in 430 on the cross section area.


So in the NASA calculator, I filled in
1201 Lbs
430 sq ft.
0.0378 drag coefficient
10,000 altitude feet (for good measure)

In turn this weights out to about 88 m/sec, well within the math given from the physics prof. This makes what he/she is saying has clarification.

For layman's terms and cliff notes for everyone else:
So, in real world, mathematically - you cannot do this stunt!
Why? Because a human's maximum TV (Terminal Velocity) is 70 m/s maximum ever possible while free skydiving. Any preexisting speed (the motorbike speed) gets neglected when the drag and physics coefficients weight in.

The airplane was at a higher speed, ~80m/s and would be higher if there was power applied to it.

 

[Chad1410]

Rewatching this classic, and I wondered if there was any follow up to your original 2008 post? I can’t believe how fast time flies. 2008 feel like yesterday/so long ago.