Only a handful of researchers have studied why an American football flies in such a unique trajectory, rifling through the air with remarkable precision, but also swerving, wobbling, and even tumbling as it barrels downfield. Now, ballistics experts at Stevens Institute of Technology have, for the first time, applied their understanding of artillery shells to explain this unique movement, creating the most precise model to date of the flight of a spiraling football.

"When a quarterback makes a good spiral pass, the ball's trajectory is remarkably similar to that of an artillery shell or a bullet, and the military has poured enormous resources into studying the way those projectiles fly," explained John Dzielski, a Stevens' research professor and mechanical engineer whose work is reported in The American Society of Mechanical Engineers' Open Journal of Engineering. "Using well-understood ballistics equations, we've been able to model the flight of a football more precisely than ever before."

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/08/220804130654.htm

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