Simulation Of Projectile Motion
The input values for some of the variables used in the programming and simulation process are as shown in Table 1 below.
With these constant values over the many times the simulation is looped so as to simulate aircraft dropping bombs, we would be able to calculate the hit probability of which the bomb will successfully hit the building.
Table 1: Values used in Simulation
The Hit Probability of Bomb with Different Reaction Times is as shown in Table 2 below:
Table 2: Hit Probability of Bomb with
Different Reaction Times
Graph 1 shows the above results plotted into a graph of the hit probability of the bomb hitting the building when released by an aircraft versus the reaction time of the pilot.
Graph 1: Graph of Hit Probability (%) versus
Reaction Time (s)
From the graph, we can infer that the larger the deviation of the bomb release time, the lower the probability of the bomb hitting the building. However, if the pilot has a precise reaction time, he would be able to achieve a high hit probability, as he would have released the bomb on time such that it would take the “perfect” path to be able to hit the building, and it would be a confirmed hit on the building.
Using this to apply to the military, it is important for the pilots of the air force to be properly trained such that they would be able to achieve perfect reaction times, especially when they have to manage several tasks in the aircraft cockpit simultaneously, which may require precise reaction times to drop the bomb on time.
If the pilots are not properly trained and have poor alertness, they would not be able to achieve high hit probability rates. For example, the hit probability can be lower than 50% with a deviation of release time by only 0.8 seconds, which means that more than half of the released bombs are not hitting the right targets, or worst still, meaning that such bombs end up hitting civilians and doing unwanted collateral damage.
