Projectile Drag/Wind Simulator

Air resistance breaks the elegant parabola symmetry of ideal projectile motion. The drag force is proportional to v², so doubling speed quadruples drag. At terminal velocity, drag equals gravity and vertical acceleration stops. Real artillery tables account for drag, spin, air density, and wind — the ideal formula is only a first approximation.

A projectile only feels drag from its speed through the air, not its speed over the ground. Wind moves the whole mass of air, while drag always acts opposite the object's motion relative to that air. So a headwind raises your effective airspeed and drag bites harder, while a tailwind lowers it — letting the projectile fly farther than the wind's gentle push alone would explain.

Here's the counterintuitive part: roughening a ball can reduce its drag. A golf ball's dimples trip the airflow into a thin turbulent boundary layer that clings to the surface longer, shrinking the low-pressure wake behind it. A dimpled ball flies roughly twice as far as a smooth one launched identically. This simulator's tidy v²-drag law assumes a fixed drag coefficient, so it can't capture that 'drag crisis' where Cd suddenly drops as speed rises.