How fast is Rainbowdash?
*Hidden Name*, period 4, 9/23/14
For my essay I have decided to research just how fast Rainbowdash can really fly. Rainbowdash is a character from the television show “My Little Pony” and she is the fastest Pegasus in all of Equestria. I have chosen to research this because I am what is known as a brony – a male who likes the show “My Little Pony”. So I was curious as to how fast Rainbowdash can really go (In mph) because she is very, very, fast.
In the episode “Sonic Rainboom” Rainbowdash performs an acrobatic maneuver called the sonic rainboom. During this maneuver Rainbowdash dives towards the ground from a great height, breaks the sound barrier, and somehow shatters the visible light spectrum causing an explosion of color to occur behind her.
Below are images from right before the sonic rainboom and after the sonic rainboom.
Before: After:
As we can see from the images she is clearly going very fast, but exactly how fast? A brony by the name of Steven Magnet dissected the faulty physics from the show for a presentation and the video of his presentation is very well known in the brony community. That’s where I started my research. A mach cone formed around Rainbowdash before the sonic rainboom occurred and Steven measured the cone to be 12 degrees. From this he made the following calculations:
“Sin(12) = V sound/V object
V sound = 340 m/s
Sin(12) = 340/V object
V object = 1,635.31 m/s
Time = 15 sec.”
Using the equation for acceleration that we have learned (a= changeV/t) and the data from Stevens presentation, I can calculate the rate of Rainbowdash’s acceleration.
1,653.31 / 15 = 109m/s
Another author (I could not find his name) did some work on this topic and calculated that when the sonic rainboom occurred Rainbowdash’s speed nearly doubled so that she was traveling at3402.9m/s which is 7,612mph or Mach 10. That’s fast!
Some equations that we have studied that apply here are:
a = change V/t (I calculated the acceleration)
d = V x t (We can roughly calculate the distance Rainbowdash flew)
1,653.31 x 15 = 24,530 meters
One final example: If she could fly at top speed for long enough, how long would it take Rainbowdash to fly from Portland, Oregon to New York, New York?
V = 7,612mph
D = 2,452miles
D / V = t
2,452 / 7,612 = .32h or 19 minutes
To conclude, I was surprised at how fast Rainbowdash is. Granted, she cannot sustain her top speed of mach 10 for a very long time but the fact that she can reach it at all is astonishing. To compare, the fastest manned jet aircraft ever flown was the Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird and that topped out at a mere 2,193.2mph. I was also surprised and impressed at how quickly she pulled up from her dive considering the great speed at which she was traveling. I do not have any more questions at this time because I have thoroughly answered all the questions that I had. As for other places this information may apply, I don’t think there are any.
Sources