History Main / VariableTerminalVelocity

* Averted in of early boss fights in ''VideoGame/MetroidPrime3''. Samus is fighting Ridley....while falling down a ''very'' long generator shaft. Ridley uses his wings and claws to speed up or slow down respectively, but outside of that both characters are falling at the same speed.

->''"Bulma, [[ImpliedDeathThreat how high would you have to fall from]] to hit terminal velocity?"''

* This is either Literature or Real Life, not sure, but there was a book years ago about how to survive a variety of odd situations, one of which was sharing a parachute. It's possible, but very, very, painful. Broken limbs abound because you have to secure yourself to the person with the parachute in a way you won't fall off when the chute deploys.
** That's the Worst Case Scenario Survival Handbook, and you have to hook your arms through the front of their rigging and grasp your wrists, you dislocate both shoulders and possibly both people will break their legs too. But it's better than the alternative....
*** There's a stunt called "Mr. Bill" which entails doing this deliberately. It's done well before reaching terminal velocity though, and the other guy then jumps off and deploys his own parachute. Depending on the parachute it could be done at terminal with minimal injuries, this troper's parachute (Spectre 150) has very soft openings. Landing two people with a chute designed for one is bound to be rough though - but still better than landing without one.
*** Here's an exemple [[https://youtu.be/KpuUsT-jG2o GoPro video on Youtube]] of a guy proposing his girlfriend while doing a "Mr. Bill".

* ''Animation/HappyHeroes: The Movie'': Both times Happy S. has to dive after Careful S. to save him, he is able to fall fast enough to be able to catch up with him. Perhaps justified in that Happy S. gets an extra boost through his power, however.
* Averted in ''WesternAnimation/TheIncredibles'' when Elastigirl and her kids drop out of the airplane. All three fall at the same rate.

This ''is'' possible when you factor wind resistance into the equation. But even then, you'd need to fall a ''very'' long distance (as in thousands of feet while skydiving, not the hundreds of feet out an apartment window) for that effect to be workable in your favor. Someone falling head-down has a terminal velocity about 1.5x faster than someone falling belly-down (180mph vs. 120mph). A professional in streamlined clothing and gear can hit about 2.5x the belly-down speed (about 300mph).

The wacky world of TV physics seems to postulate, among [[GravityIsAHarshMistress other factors]], that how fast a person or object is pulled towards the ground is a function of how heroic they are, and not the constant acceleration of gravity (9.8 meters/second^2) that the rest of us have to deal with.[[note]]For those who care, terminal velocity is the point at which acceleration due to gravity is equal to deceleration due to friction with the air, or air resistance. The gravity acts toward the center of the earth, and the friction acts in the opposite direction from the way the object is moving. This creates an overall force of zero, which causes a constant velocity. What speed terminal velocity actually is is determined by the weight and surface area of an object. In layman's terms, it's the fastest speed you can get to with only gravity pulling you down in an atmosphere, and it's determined by how heavy and what shape you are.[[/note]]

[[folder:Film]]

* Averted in ''WesternAnimation/TheIncredibles'' when Elastigirl and her kids drop out of the airplane. All three fall at the same rate.

* ''Animation/HappyHeroes: The Movie'': Both times Happy S. has to dive after Careful S. to save him, he is able to fall fast enough to be able to catch up with him. Perhaps justified in that Happy S. gets an extra boost through his power, however.

* Happens in ''Machinima/RedVsBlue'', after the Director blows up the skyscraper in season 9. Tex kicks the Sarcophagus off the roof, then the others jump after it and end up catching up to it. However, it's done fairly realistically--the Sarcophagus isn't exactly streamlined while the Freelancers chasing it have their limbs tucked in until they reach it, at which point they spread out to more like the "boxman" position to match its speed. York and Carolina getting "caught" by Maine in the Warthog is probably an example of this, though.

* A similar situation occurs in ''Anime/MaiOtome'' when Arika and Mashiro are stuck in a cave with [[ConvectionSchmonvection lava that's only dangerous if you touch it]]. Judging by the height of the ceiling they fell from, there was simply not enough time for Mashiro to unlock Arika's powers ''and'' for Arika to [[ByThePowerOfGreyskull say "Materialize"]].

-->-- ''Gohan'', ''[[WebVideo/DragonBallZAbridged Dragon Ball Z Abridged]]''

-->-- ''Gohan'', ''[[WebVideo/DragonBallZAbridged]]''

* WesternAnimation/KimPossible jumped after Señor Senior Senior from a plane, and the slender cheerleader overtook this much bigger man. Then they did Kung Fu. During the fall. [[RuleOfCool Boo-yah]].
** "Anything is possible for a Possible."
*** Weight does not affect fall speed, it's all about wind resistance, and the slender Kim Possible would have a much smaller surface area than the not-so-slender Señor Senior Senior.

* A common element of CartoonPhysics, but it usually works ''against'' the protagonist rather than in his/her favor. Falling objects reach the ground in whatever order will produce the most painful (for the protagonist) and funny (for the audience) result. Note, in these situations, almost everything falls faster than [[AccordionMan an anvil]].
** A humorous observation is that there is no constant acceleration of gravity in cartoons, only the initial acceleration to a constant speed -- you can see this if you watch someone falling in a cartoon; the background flies past at the same speed the whole time. [[FridgeBrilliance This is why Wile E. Coyote can fall off a cliff and walk away with only bruises.]]
** Though normally everything falls faster than the anvil in cartoons for comic effect there is one exception. If the anvil is deployed from a backpack in place of a parachute it will suddenly notice that it's an anvil and accelerate the attached protagonist groundward at breakneck speed.

* In one episode, WesternAnimation/DarkwingDuck finds himself falling with a coconut-shaped bomb next to him, having involuntarily been ejected from his plane. He tries to throw it up and away, and it catches up. Twice, same result. (This might make sense, given surface area between caped duck and sphere). Less explainable is when he throws it to the ''side'' and it returns; he just resigns himself to fate at that point.

* Counter-example: ''WesternAnimation/SherlockHolmesInTheTwentySecondCentury'': "The Empty House": Sherlock realizes that Moriarty had staged his death when the two seemed to fall into an energy field. Both did fall at the same time, but Holmes managed to catch himself on a ledge and then threw a rock at the energy field. The fact that the impact on the field was simultaneous told him that Moriarty did the same thing.

** IIRC, Elisa did have her arms and legs spread out, and Goliath dived head first after her. And Goliath bottomed out of their plunge only a few stories above ground level.
** Cloud level can be pretty low, depending on what you count as "cloud" (compared to "fog").
*** Macbeth later described the Eyrie Building as "the world's tallest building," and it was certainly taller than the other buildings in Manhattan.