A bullet is shot horizontally from a gun at 275ms How much does the bullet drop in flight if the targey is 50m away?

Answer 1

The bullet dropped .1612 meters.

To solve this type of problem, first determine how much time it took the bullet to travel to the target. Since Velocity = Distance / Time, Time = Distance / Velocity. In this problem Time = (50 m) / (275 m/s) = .1818 seconds.

Now use this time to figure out how far the bullet would have fallen due to gravity. You've probably seen this equation (or something like it) before:

Δy = vo*t - 1/2 * g * t2.

This equation means that to find how far the bullet fell you need to know how long it was falling, how fast it was falling at the very beginning, and what the acceleration due to gravity is. We already figured out how long the bullet was falling, we know that it wasn't falling at all at the very beginning, and gravity = 9.8 m/s2. This means that:

t = .1818

vo = 0

g = 9.8

So plug that in to the previous equation:

Δy = (0) * (.1818) - (1/2) * (9.8) * (.1818)2.

Δy = - .1612, with the - sign meaning the bullet went down and not up into the air.