Car Jump Distance Calculator finds how far a car travels through the air after leaving a ramp at a given speed and angle. It also gives hang time, landing speed and nose-down tilt.
Enter the speed at the ramp lip, the ramp angle and the gap. Heights are measured from the ground.
Landing Ramp and Air Drag
The landing ramp slopes down from the far edge of the gap and needs a landing height above zero. Set the drag coefficient to 0 for the textbook answer.
Flight Path, Point by Point
| Time (s) | Distance (ft) | Height (ft) | Speed (mph) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0.00 | 0.0 | 5.0 | 60.0 |
| 0.16 | 13.4 | 8.2 | 59.1 |
| 0.32 | 26.7 | 10.6 | 58.5 |
| 0.47 | 40.1 | 12.1 | 58.0 |
| 0.63 | 53.4 | 12.9 | 57.7 |
| 0.79 | 66.8 | 12.9 | 57.7 |
| 0.95 | 80.1 | 12.1 | 57.8 |
| 1.10 | 93.4 | 10.5 | 58.2 |
| 1.26 | 106.7 | 8.1 | 58.7 |
| 1.42 | 119.9 | 4.9 | 59.5 |
| 1.58 | 133.2 | 0.9 | 60.4 |
Car Jump Distance Calculator for Ramp Jumps
A car that leaves a ramp becomes a projectile. Its path is set by the speed at the ramp lip, the ramp angle, and the heights of the takeoff and landing. The Car Jump Distance Calculator traces that path in small time steps, so it can also include air drag and a sloped landing ramp.
The result is the distance along the ground from the ramp lip to the touchdown point. Alongside it come the time in the air, the highest point, the landing speed, and how far the nose drops in flight. Everything here is physics for study and curiosity, not a plan for a real stunt.
How Is Jump Distance Calculated?
Without air drag, and with takeoff and landing at the same height, jump distance is the projectile range. Square the takeoff speed, multiply by the sine of twice the ramp angle, and divide by gravity.
$$R = \frac{v^2 \sin 2\theta}{g}$$
When the landing is lower or higher than the takeoff, the height difference joins the formula. Here the height difference is the takeoff height minus the landing height. A lower landing gives the car more time to fall, so it travels farther.
$$R = \frac{v \cos\theta}{g} \left( v \sin\theta + \sqrt{v^2 \sin^2\theta + 2 g \Delta h} \right)$$
| Symbol | Meaning | Unit |
|---|---|---|
| R | Jump distance along the ground | m or ft |
| v | Speed at the ramp lip | m/s or ft/s |
| θ | Ramp angle above horizontal | degrees |
| g | Standard gravity, 9.80665 m/s² | m/s² |
| Δh | Takeoff height minus landing height | m or ft |
The default entries are 60 mph off a 15° ramp, with takeoff and landing both 5 ft high. Sixty mph is 26.82 m/s. The first formula gives 26.82² × sin 30° / 9.80665, which is 36.68 m, or 120.3 ft. With the drag coefficient set to 0 and a flat landing, the Car Jump Distance Calculator returns the same 120.3 ft.
Ramp Angle, Hang Time and Peak Height
A steeper ramp trades forward speed for time in the air. Hang time is twice the vertical speed divided by gravity, and the peak height above the lip is the vertical speed squared over twice gravity.
$$t = \frac{2 v \sin\theta}{g}$$
$$H = \frac{v^2 \sin^2\theta}{2g}$$
| Ramp Angle | Jump Distance | Hang Time | Peak Above Lip |
|---|---|---|---|
| 5° | 41.7 ft | 0.48 s | 0.9 ft |
| 10° | 82.0 ft | 0.95 s | 3.6 ft |
| 15° | 119.6 ft | 1.41 s | 8.0 ft |
| 20° | 153.4 ft | 1.87 s | 14.0 ft |
| 30° | 206.1 ft | 2.73 s | 29.9 ft |
| 45° | 237.2 ft | 3.85 s | 59.7 ft |
The table is for 60 mph, a level landing and the default car with air drag. Distance peaks at 45°, but the car also climbs 60 ft and comes down as steeply as it went up. That is why real jump ramps stay shallow. With a flat landing selected, the Car Jump Distance Calculator names the ramp angle that carries farthest at your speed.
How Much Air Drag Takes Off
Drag slows the car in proportion to the air density, the drag coefficient, the frontal area and the speed squared, divided by twice the mass. The Car Jump Distance Calculator uses sea-level air of 1.225 kg/m³.
$$a = \frac{\rho \, C_d \, A \, v^2}{2 m}$$
The drag coefficient presets are measured values. Car and Driver put five production cars through the same wind tunnel in 2014, and Green Car Reports summarizes the results. The Tesla Model S measured 0.24, the Toyota Prius 0.26, the Chevrolet Volt 0.28, the Mercedes CLA 250 0.30 and the Nissan Leaf 0.32.
For a 3,500 lb car with a 0.30 drag coefficient and 24 ft² of frontal area, drag matters less than most people expect. A car is heavy for the air it has to push aside, and the flight lasts only a second or two.
| Takeoff Speed | Without Drag | With Drag | Distance Lost |
|---|---|---|---|
| 40 mph | 53.5 ft | 53.3 ft | 0.2 ft |
| 60 mph | 120.3 ft | 119.6 ft | 0.8 ft |
| 80 mph | 213.9 ft | 211.5 ft | 2.4 ft |
| 100 mph | 334.3 ft | 328.5 ft | 5.8 ft |
These are level jumps off a 15° ramp. Even at 100 mph the loss is under 2%. A lighter vehicle with a large frontal area for its weight loses more. To use the tool as a bike jump calculator, enter the combined mass of bike and rider and their frontal area.
Why the Nose Drops in the Air
A jumping car almost always tips forward. Physicist Rod Cross of Sydney University explained why in Launch of a Vehicle from a Ramp, published in The Physics Teacher in 2011.
The front wheels leave the ramp first. For a moment only the rear wheels are supported, and the push on them turns the car nose-down. Once the rear wheels leave, the car keeps turning at that rate until it lands.
Cross treats the car as a uniform body three times as long as the distance from its rear axle to its center of mass. Taking the center of mass midway between the axles, his equations give the pitch rate below. A cosine term is added here for a ramp that slopes upward.
$$\omega = \frac{8 g \cos\theta}{7 v}$$
Two things follow from it, and both are in Cross’s paper. The rate does not depend on the mass of the car. A slow car rotates faster than a quick one, because the rear wheels stay on the ramp longer. At 60 mph off a 15° ramp the rate is 23° per second.
On a level jump the total rotation depends only on the ramp angle. Multiply the pitch rate by the hang time and the speed cancels out. That leaves the ramp angle as the one thing a builder can change to control how far the nose drops.
$$\phi = \frac{8}{7} \sin 2\theta$$
The result is in radians. A 15° ramp turns the car 33° by touchdown at any speed, and a 30° ramp turns it 57°. Cross tested the model on a real crash he investigated for the police.
A four-wheel drive left a sand dune at 24 km/h on a 7° incline and fell 2.8 m. He estimated about 80° of rotation, which matched the witnesses. The Car Jump Distance Calculator gives 81° for those figures.
Landing Ramp, Landing Speed and Impact
How hard the car lands depends on the angle between its path and the surface. The Car Jump Distance Calculator turns that into an equal drop height, the height a car would have to fall straight down to hit as hard.
$$h = \frac{(v_L \sin\beta)^2}{2g}$$
Here the landing speed is multiplied by the sine of the angle into the surface. With the default jump and a flat landing, the car meets the ground at 15° and the hit equals a drop of 8.0 ft. Add a 10° down ramp at the far edge of the gap and the angle falls to 8.3°. The hit then equals a drop of 2.6 ft.
A landing ramp only helps if the car lands on it. The default 110 ft gap with a 5 ft high, 10° ramp leaves a narrow window. The car clears the gap at 57.5 mph and flies past the end of the ramp above 60.6 mph. At 65 mph it lands on flat ground beyond the ramp, with a hit equal to a 14.4 ft drop.
A Record Jump Checked by the Numbers
In 2011 Tanner Foust jumped a truck 332 ft at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Popular Science reported a takeoff ramp of 10° and a speed of 103 mph at the lip, with the truck landing more than 100 ft down the landing ramp.
At 103 mph and 10°, the level range without drag is only 243 ft. To reach 332 ft at that speed and angle, the landing point has to sit about 22 ft below the ramp lip. The reported speed and angle only fit the record distance if the truck touched down well below the lip, on the descending landing ramp.
The same drag physics at much higher speed is covered by the Ballistic Coefficient Calculator, and the Arrow Speed Calculator works out drop and flight time for an arrow. Other motion tools are on the Kinematics Calculators page.