U = mgh

(Potential energy = mass times gravity times height)

The simplest way to understand this is, “The more you weigh and the farther you fall, the harder you hit”. Or, if you need more, here’s the roller coaster link:

http://adventure.howstuffworks.com/roller-coaster3.htm

This is another basic lesson in our world of flight series. (Where did this come from?) We’ll assume you’ve put the throttle full forward, where it belongs, and leave it there.

You can have Airspeed (the more the merrier and you can never have too much), or you can have Altitude (another good thing, but when you run out of it…..well, you know the rest). When you want altitude you give up some airspeed to get it. If you have a lot of altitude, you can get more airspeed by ‘spending’ some of the height. Life’s full of compromises and this is just another of them. It’s also what you need to know to perform against an aerial threat and keep from being…..well, you know.

One other gremlin waiting for you in this endeavor is turning. Turning kills speed, and the harder you turn, the more speed you lose. Sometimes you just have to turn, but if you can afford to turn easy instead of hard, you’ll lose less speed. And you want as much speed as possible, cause you might have to trade it for altitude, boy is this complicated!

Which brings me to the point of all this - - - STAY OFF YOUR DAMN BRAKES WHEN YOU GO DOWN THE HILL IN FRONT OF ME, YOU’RE GIVING UP ALTITUDE AND GETTING NOTHING OUT OF IT! WHEN YOU GET TO THE BOTTOM, YOU’LL NEED ALL THAT FREE SPEED TO GET UP THE OTHER SIDE! ARE YOU THAT STUPID???

O.K., the Valium helped. Isn’t it neat how one principle in life can be of benefit in another? We shouldn’t need to learn everything from hard knocks should we? Better yet, just stay off the road when I’m out driving – I’ll let you know when you can bumble out again.

You just had to ask, didn’t you?