Tomahawks, tornadoes and the inadvisability of shooting into the air

After a week of continuous activity and little sleep, lassitude descended this Sunday, resulting in an indolent day watching the imposition of the Libyan no-fly zone by the French, British and United States and other allies under UN Special Resolution 1973.

As the reports on the BBC News channel cycled through a limited set of facts, my curiosity was aroused about the missiles and jet aeroplanes used.

Missiles

• 124 Tomahawk missiles were fired by U.S. and British forces against at least 20 Libyan targets around Tripoli and Misrata. The missile has been in service in a variety of forms and capabilities since 1983.
  

Military Aircraft

• France: Dassault Rafale; a twin engined multi-role jet fighter aircraft that was introduced in 2000
• United Kingdom: 
• Panavia Tornado GR4. The Tornado first entered service in 1979, the current GR4s are presumably from the Mid-Life Upgrade, seeing first service in 1998.
• Eurofighter Typhoon. Maiden flight in 1994.
• United States of America:
• Northrup Grumman B-2 Spirit (also known as the Stealth Bomber). Originally designed for the 1980s. Only 20 aircraft exist.
• Air Force F-15 Eagle. A twin engined tactical fighter who's first version flew in 1972 and with current models expected to be in service till 2025.
• Air Force F-16. Entered operational service in 1980.
• Navy Boeing EA-18G Growler. A carrier based aircraft with electronic warfare capability.
• Marine  AV-8B Harrier. produced from 1969 onwards, the last re-manufactured Harrier was delivered in 2003.

The inadvisability of shooting into the air

The other recurrent image upon our television screens was the celebratory firing of guns into the air. A contemplation on the ubiquity of earthly gravity rapidly leads one to the inevitable conclusion that what goes up, must also come down. Indeed the likelihood of fatal injury from such a falling bullet lies at 32%, which is five-fold higher than being intentionally fired upon in the conventional way, due to the near vertical descent of the impacting missile at high speed, often upon the skull.

My thoughts then migrated to the possible distance that the bullet might travel in such instances and I naively perused the internet for a simple answer. Alas, the Wikipedia article on External Ballistics rapidly dispelled this misconception as the number of factors that need to be taken into consideration include:

• Bullet Drop
• Drag resistance
• Wind
• Vertical angles
• Ambient Air density
• Gyroscopic drift
• Magnus effect
• Coriolis drift
• Poisson effect
• Lateral jump
• Lateral throw-off

I hope that I may be excused for not following the matter further and reverting to the simple advice, please refrain from near vertical firing of small arms in celebration!