Just How Fast Is Mach 10 in Top Gun?
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Mach is a unit of speed commonly used in aviation. Mach is a measurement of an object's speed relative to the speed of sound — 760 miles per hour at sea level. The inclusion of sea level is important as factors like humidity and the atmosphere cause the speed of sound to be reduced with greater altitude. The standard fighter jets used by the American military — like the Falcon F15 — have an average top speed of around Mach 2.5 (1900mph).
As mentioned previously, altitude drastically affects the speed of sound, and Maverick takes the
Darkstar to an altitude of around 80,000 feet. At that height, the speed of sound reduces significantly to around 660mph. If none of that made any sense to you, a reductionist way of looking at Mach speed is stating that Mach 1 is roughly 760 mph at sea level, and 660mph during the Darkstar test in
Top Gun: Maverick. Therefore, each time the Mach counter in the Darkstar goes up by 0.1, you add 66mph.
Mach is a unit of speed commonly used in aviation. Mach is a measurement of an object's speed relative to the speed of sound — 760 miles per hour at sea level. The inclusion of sea level is important as factors like humidity and the atmosphere cause the speed of sound to be reduced with greater altitude. The standard fighter jets used by the American military — like the Falcon F15 — have an average top speed of around Mach 2.5 (1900mph).
As mentioned previously, altitude drastically affects the speed of sound, and Maverick takes the
Darkstar to an altitude of around 80,000 feet. At that height, the speed of sound reduces significantly to around 660mph. If none of that made any sense to you, a reductionist way of looking at Mach speed is stating that Mach 1 is roughly 760 mph at sea level, and 660mph during the Darkstar test in
Top Gun: Maverick. Therefore, each time the Mach counter in the Darkstar goes up by 0.1, you add 66mph.
Can a Human Survive Mach 10
In
Top Gun: Maverick, Maverick doesn't just achieve Mach 10, he pushes the Darkstar beyond its limits and hits Mach 10.2 before the aircraft disintegrates (as it probably would have before hitting Mach 10 in real life). However, it's almost a guarantee that Maverick would have blacked out long ago and certainly would have died from heart failure and brain death.
The average human can withstand forces of around 4.6g for a few seconds, with trained fighter pilots capable of withstanding 9g for one or two seconds before blacking out. The Darkstar flying at Mach 10 would roughly achieve a force of 34g, which is almost guaranteed
to kill a human. Of course, this is all theoretical, as the effects of 34g have never been officially tested, but the theory can be deduced from the effects of lower g forces on the human body.
High g forces can have a destructive effect on the human cardiovascular system. The intense force strains the heart's ability to pump blood around the body. Not only does this strain the heart directly, but the reduced blood supply to the brain would cause the person to black out within seconds. Prolonged blood restriction would cause irreparable damage to the brain, eventually resulting in death. Not only would the prolonged g force kill the pilot, but the blackout would likely result in a loss of control of the aircraft, and lead to a fatal accident before that is possible.
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