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Zenister

Lexus Commercial and Physics?

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so has anyone done the math to see if this commerical is even feasable?

1 Lexus dropped from 4000 feet (stationary held by a helo)
1 Lexus starting from 4000 feet (commercial isnt clear if it starts from 0 or not) and beats the falling car (slightly) to the impact point?

i'm sure there are a number of undefined variables that would drastically change the outcome (Falling car does not tumble at all, seems strange without mods, Terminal velocity for the Lexus would have to be figured etc...)
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Those who fail to learn from the past are simply Doomed.

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IIRC, the horizontal car is moving when the vertical car is dropped. I don't know what terminal for a car is, and that is most important as the car would probably spend the majority of 4k fall at terminal.

Didnt someone push a car out of a Skyvan at Eloy some time ago? Is there video?

I thought the whole thing was odd. Near as I can tell the message suposed to be: "Lexus is run by nerds, so your car will be chock full of aerospace level technology"
It's flare not flair, brakes not breaks, bridle not bridal, "could NOT care less" not "could care less".

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I have not seen the commercial, but I assume you mean that the car travels 4000' along the ground while the other is falling, and starts at zero.

The quick answer is no. Leaving out the effect of air resistance, the falling car is accellerating at 1g.

The Lexus probably does 0-60 (88 ft/sec) in 10-12 seconds. 0-60 in 10 seconds is an accelleration of 8.8 ft/sec^2. 1g is 32.2 ft/sec^2 (v=at, 88=a(10), a=8.8ft/sec^2).

The car on the ground has ~1/3 the rate of accel that the falling car has and they're both dealing with air resistance, so I say no way. Do they show it hitting the ground? I gotta see that!

"Once we got to the point where twenty/something's needed a place on the corner that changed the oil in their cars we were doomed . . ."
-NickDG

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Yep, I was way off. The quickest one I found on the Lexus website is quoted at 5.3-8.3 sec, depending on options, I guess. 5.3 sec 0-60 comes out to just a hair over 1/2g. 1/4 mile is close to 15 sec. at ~100 MPH. Discounting air resistance again, the falling car will hit 100 MPH in ~4.5 sec. after falling ~325 ft. The car on the ground is way behind. Not too long after that the falling car will hit terminal (my guess 150 mph). ASSuming 150 MPH top speed for the car, I still don't see how it could catch up.

"Once we got to the point where twenty/something's needed a place on the corner that changed the oil in their cars we were doomed . . ."
-NickDG

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The car is moving when it passes the "starting line".
It does not have an initial velocity of zero.

The car falling has an initial velocity of zero and then accelerates.



That could change things bigtime. Any idea how fast it was going?

"Once we got to the point where twenty/something's needed a place on the corner that changed the oil in their cars we were doomed . . ."
-NickDG

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so has anyone done the math to see if this commerical is even feasable?

1 Lexus dropped from 4000 feet (stationary held by a helo)
1 Lexus starting from 4000 feet (commercial isnt clear if it starts from 0 or not) and beats the falling car (slightly) to the impact point?

i'm sure there are a number of undefined variables that would drastically change the outcome (Falling car does not tumble at all, seems strange without mods, Terminal velocity for the Lexus would have to be figured etc...)



The implication of the commercial is that the Lexus is a "1 G" car.

Is that possible by any car? Yes. Absolutely.

Is that possible by that particular Lexus? My guess is yes, since a "1 G" car is kinda of a buzz-word for performance cars and I seriously doubt that they'd make that commercial if it didn't live up to the claim.
quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

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Why leave out air resistance? From 4000 feet, it will have a huge affect.

Dave



Dave,

I just eyeballed it. It seems that the drag area to mass ratio of a car is probably fairly close to that of a jumper. Even using 120 MPH (which I should have done) as terminal for the falling car, it would be a push for the car to win.

"Once we got to the point where twenty/something's needed a place on the corner that changed the oil in their cars we were doomed . . ."
-NickDG

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Just a quick half-asleep calculation....
Figure 10 seconds to drop first 1000, then 5 sec./thousand after that would give 25 seconds from release to ground strike. The car on the ground would have to average 109 mph over it's 4000 foot run to get to the target at the same time.
If the Lexus on the ground could cover 1/4 mile in 13 seconds (I'm giving the car a lot of extra credit) that leaves 12 seconds to cover the remaining 2680 feet. To do that would require an average speed of 152 mph, well out of range for a Lexus.
I assumed a lot of specs, so don't hold me responsible if I'm wrong.
If you use these figures to place any bets, and you lose, you will make me look bad and I will file a lawsuit. If you read all of this and don't use it to place a bet, I will take that as an insult and will file a defamation of character suit.:)

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Just a quick half-asleep calculation....
Figure 10 seconds to drop first 1000, then 5 sec./thousand after that would give 25 seconds from release to ground strike. The car on the ground would have to average 109 mph over it's 4000 foot run to get to the target at the same time.
If the Lexus on the ground could cover 1/4 mile in 13 seconds (I'm giving the car a lot of extra credit) that leaves 12 seconds to cover the remaining 2680 feet. To do that would require an average speed of 152 mph, well out of range for a Lexus.
I assumed a lot of specs, so don't hold me responsible if I'm wrong.
If you use these figures to place any bets, and you lose, you will make me look bad and I will file a lawsuit. If you read all of this and don't use it to place a bet, I will take that as an insult and will file a defamation of character suit.:)



What if I just call the guys at Lexus and find out?
quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

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so has anyone done the math to see if this commerical is even feasable?

1 Lexus dropped from 4000 feet (stationary held by a helo)
1 Lexus starting from 4000 feet (commercial isnt clear if it starts from 0 or not) and beats the falling car (slightly) to the impact point?

i'm sure there are a number of undefined variables that would drastically change the outcome (Falling car does not tumble at all, seems strange without mods, Terminal velocity for the Lexus would have to be figured etc...)



The implication of the commercial is that the Lexus is a "1 G" car.

Is that possible by any car? Yes. Absolutely.

Is that possible by that particular Lexus? My guess is yes, since a "1 G" car is kinda of a buzz-word for performance cars and I seriously doubt that they'd make that commercial if it didn't live up to the claim.



No way will it accellerate at 1g. The Bugatti Veyron does 0-100 in 5.7 sec. That's .8g. The Lexus will do .5g max. 0-100 based numbers from Lexus.

EDIT to add: The "1g car" refers to lateral accel around a skidpad. It may apply to braking if you have Porsche brakes.

"Once we got to the point where twenty/something's needed a place on the corner that changed the oil in their cars we were doomed . . ."
-NickDG

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so has anyone done the math to see if this commerical is even feasable?

1 Lexus dropped from 4000 feet (stationary held by a helo)
1 Lexus starting from 4000 feet (commercial isnt clear if it starts from 0 or not) and beats the falling car (slightly) to the impact point?

i'm sure there are a number of undefined variables that would drastically change the outcome (Falling car does not tumble at all, seems strange without mods, Terminal velocity for the Lexus would have to be figured etc...)



The implication of the commercial is that the Lexus is a "1 G" car.

Is that possible by any car? Yes. Absolutely.

Is that possible by that particular Lexus? My guess is yes, since a "1 G" car is kinda of a buzz-word for performance cars and I seriously doubt that they'd make that commercial if it didn't live up to the claim.



Getting 1 G acceleration is not hard to do, as you said. But what is hard is sustaining the acceleration rate as speed builds. Power required rises as the square of the increase in speed (roughly). If you want to go 3 times as fast, you need 9 times the power.

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Is that possible by that particular Lexus? My guess is yes, since a "1 G" car is kinda of a buzz-word for performance cars and I seriously doubt that they'd make that commercial if it didn't live up to the claim.



They didn't make a claim! They made a slogan, something about beating gravity or something like that sort of vague nonsense.

As you said, the IMPLICATION is that it is a "1 G" car.

If a car accelerates at 1G doing a 1/4 mile, it would get there in just over 9 seconds. The Lexus SC ($65,000 sport coupe) claims to need 14.3 seconds. Even if there is a faster Lexus, the result will not be very close to 9 seconds.

Here's a little physics puzzle/riddle for you: How do cars accelerate faster than 1 G when we have all been taught that the coefficient of friction for surfaces varies from 0 to 1, and friction = weight * coefficient of friction, so by the standard model, you can't get more frictional force than the weight of an object. This means that the tires of a car should never be able to push harder than the weight of a car, which means that it should never be able to accelerate at more than 1 G. Of course we know that plenty of drag racers do it a lot faster than 1 G which would equal a 9 sec 1/4 mile. So, how do they do it?
People are sick and tired of being told that ordinary and decent people are fed up in this country with being sick and tired. I’m certainly not, and I’m sick and tired of being told that I am

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To do that would require an average speed of 152 mph, well out of range for a Lexus.

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Lexus claims a top speed of 149 for the SC (electronically limited).

It is just a bullshit commercial.

Now, if it was on a conveyor belt...:D:)

People are sick and tired of being told that ordinary and decent people are fed up in this country with being sick and tired. I’m certainly not, and I’m sick and tired of being told that I am

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Here's a little physics puzzle/riddle for you: How do cars accelerate faster than 1 G when we have all been taught that the coefficient of friction for surfaces varies from 0 to 1, and friction = weight * coefficient of friction, so by the standard model, you can't get more frictional force than the weight of an object. This means that the tires of a car should never be able to push harder than the weight of a car, which means that it should never be able to accelerate at more than 1 G. Of course we know that plenty of drag racers do it a lot faster than 1 G which would equal a 9 sec 1/4 mile. So, how do they do it?



My guess is that tire/road grip probably cannot be modeled as simple sliding friction. My old race car did 2.5-3 g lateral in corners with ~600 lb rear wing downforce at 125mph. F-1 cars do ~1.4g fwd accel., even before downforce comes into play.

"Once we got to the point where twenty/something's needed a place on the corner that changed the oil in their cars we were doomed . . ."
-NickDG

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That is correct.

A rubber tire, especially a very hot tire, can get a much higher coefficient of friction. Of course downforce from wings/body also helps to allow more traction.

Anyway, my Accord could probably accomplish what was done on that commercial, and of course the commercial is pure bullshit. I don't even remember the car getting damaged when it hit, and as previously mentioned it was perfectly stable. It should have been flattened like you see on the Good Stuff video.
People are sick and tired of being told that ordinary and decent people are fed up in this country with being sick and tired. I’m certainly not, and I’m sick and tired of being told that I am

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Didnt someone push a car out of a Skyvan at Eloy some time ago? Is there video?



LOTS of video.. Good Stuff as mentioned above, but i'm sure its on Skydivingmovies.com somewhere... but those cars were all specially modified NOT to tumble and had all the leaky enviromentally unfriendly parts removed...

the commerical 'shows' the impact (the car in freefall appears to be real, maybe one of our camera fliers did some work on the commercial?) but the impact shown behind the ground car as it passes doesnt look right (whats the video buzzword for the verb 'photoshop' anyway?) nor do i imagine they actually tried it as a stunt even if it were feasable..

iirc you do not see the (remains of) falling car in the commerical after the ground car passes, but it DOES look like the actually dropped a car (frame at least) for some of the footage.
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I don't remember Joe Jenning's commentary on the Good Stuff video mentioning anything about special modifications to the car to prevent tumbling.
People are sick and tired of being told that ordinary and decent people are fed up in this country with being sick and tired. I’m certainly not, and I’m sick and tired of being told that I am

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i could be wrong, but per hanger conversations at eloy alot of welding work was done to the undersides to keep them from flipping wildly out of control due to the 'unstable' exit.
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I don't remember Joe Jenning's commentary on the Good Stuff video mentioning anything about special modifications to the car to prevent tumbling.

yep they modified it quite a bit actually... and it still wasn't very stable.
Livin' on the Edge... sleeping with my rigger's wife...

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To do that would require an average speed of 152 mph, well out of range for a Lexus.

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Lexus claims a top speed of 149 for the SC (electronically limited).

It is just a bullshit commercial.

Now, if it was on a conveyor belt...:D:)



Well at least they didn't hide the fact that the car was already moving (still have not see the vid). A little head start for the car would go a long way. Also, maybe terminal velocity for a car in "stable" FF is less than that for a person. Someone around here has probably jumped with a car and might know the speed.

"Once we got to the point where twenty/something's needed a place on the corner that changed the oil in their cars we were doomed . . ."
-NickDG

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The cars that were dropped at Eloy were gutted so they were quite lighter than normal, and they were light cars to begin with, so I would expect their terminal to be pretty slow compared to a full up luxury car. It seemed that on Jenning's video the Camera fliers were staying with the cars easily.
People are sick and tired of being told that ordinary and decent people are fed up in this country with being sick and tired. I’m certainly not, and I’m sick and tired of being told that I am

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