Originally Posted by
Mr Optimistic
The problem with the poor professor's paper is that it is quite simply unintelligent to include the range variation of gravity as its very small perturbing effect relative to a constant model is less than trivial when compared to the other forces acting and the inherent limitations of the model. That's what was meant by another poster when he said the beginning of the paper was wacky and not worth the read. He is entirely correct on that. I must have another look at it to see if he includes coriolis forces: I doubt he understands that either.
Ehh, when I read the paper, my takeaway was that he was talking about the variation of gravity due to altitude, a la the free air gradient vs assuming gravitational acceleration to be constant at all heights along the trajectory of the falling airplane parts. I didn't see anything in the actual paper to suggest that he was considering adding terms for temporal variations.