Free Fall Calculator
Fall speed and time, with the air resistance caveat stated.
Work out Free Fall. Fall speed and time, with the air resistance caveat stated. Gravity is an input, not an assumption.
Metres, or seconds.
Standard gravity by definition. Local values run 9.78 to 9.83.
Air resistance is ignored entirely. That is a reasonable approximation for dense objects over short drops, and badly wrong for anything light or any fall lasting more than a few seconds — a human reaches terminal velocity at roughly 55 m/s after about twelve seconds, whatever this arithmetic says.
Impact speed (m/s)
14.005
50.42 km/h after 1.428 s
Ignoring air resistance, speed grows linearly with time but distance grows with its square — so the second second of a fall covers three times what the first does.
How the Free Fall Calculator works
Speed and time for an object falling from rest, ignoring air resistance. That last clause does a great deal of work: a human reaches terminal velocity at roughly 55 m/s after about twelve seconds, and beyond that these figures stop describing reality.
Also known as: falling object calculator · how fast does something fall · drop height calculator · free fall formula
The calculation itself
Speed grows linearly with time, v = gt, but distance grows with its square, d = ½gt². That difference is why the second second of a fall covers three times what the first does.
After 3 seconds an object is moving at 29.4 m/s — 106 km/h — and has fallen 44.1 metres. A 10 metre drop takes 1.43 seconds.
What is being ignored
Air resistance, entirely. That is a fair approximation for a dense object over a short drop and badly wrong for anything else.
A human body reaches terminal velocity at roughly 55 m/s belly-down, after about twelve seconds and 450 metres. Past that point drag balances gravity exactly and the speed stops rising, whatever this arithmetic reports.
In a vacuum mass genuinely cancels out — the hammer and the feather land together, as demonstrated on the Moon in 1971. In air they do not, because heavier objects carry more weight relative to their drag.
Frequently asked questions
How fast does an object fall?
v = gt, ignoring air resistance. After 3 seconds that is 29.4 m/s, or 106 km/h.
How long does it take to fall a given height?
t = √(2h/g). A 10 metre drop takes 1.43 seconds.
Do heavier objects fall faster?
Not in a vacuum — mass cancels out of the equation entirely. In air they often do, because heavier objects have more weight relative to their drag, which is why a hammer beats a feather here but not on the Moon.
What is terminal velocity?
The speed at which drag balances gravity and acceleration stops. For a human it is roughly 55 m/s belly-down, reached after about twelve seconds. This calculator ignores drag, so it will happily report speeds no falling body reaches.
Put this calculator on your own site
Free to use, on any site, commercial or not. Paste this where you want it to appear. It is a plain iframe, so it works in WordPress, Squarespace, Wix, Webflow, Ghost and anything else that accepts HTML.
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