A Level Maths: Projectiles Topic Summary and Resources
Video Lessons
Watch alongside the worksheet for the full lesson experience, then test your understanding with the lesson questions.
Revision Notes
Handwritten notes summarising the key ideas for each lesson. Ideal for quick review before a test.
Exam Questions
Past-paper-style questions organised by topic, with full mark schemes.
Drawn from OCR and Edexcel past papers but designed to be useful for students of all UK exam boards — including AQA and OCR MEI — unless a sheet is explicitly board-specific.
Before You Start This Topic
It will help if you are confident with the following:
- Kinematics — Constant Acceleration (SUVAT)}}: foundational
- Vector Mechanics — vector form of SUVAT
- Trigonometry — needed for resolving initial velocity
- Quadratic Equations — trajectory is a quadratic
A Level Maths projectiles is the Year 2 mechanics topic that analyses objects flying through the air under gravity alone (no air resistance). It is one of the most rewarding topics in mechanics — almost every question splits cleanly into horizontal and vertical components, applying SUVAT to each direction independently.
You model a projectile launched with initial speed $u$ at angle $\theta$ to the horizontal. The horizontal motion has constant velocity $u\cos(\theta)$ (no horizontal force in this model). The vertical motion is constant acceleration with initial velocity $u\sin(\theta)$ and acceleration $-9.8\,\text{m/s}^2$. You apply SUVAT independently in each direction, using time as the common variable. Standard quantities to find: time of flight (when the projectile returns to launch height), range (horizontal distance travelled, with the famous formula $\frac{u^2 \sin(2\theta)}{g}$ for level ground), maximum height (when vertical velocity is zero), and the trajectory equation (eliminating $t$ between $x(t)$ and $y(t)$ to get $y$ as a function of $x$). You also handle projectiles launched from a height, hitting targets at specific positions, and problems involving angles to find.
Projectiles is part of the Mechanics strand of A Level Maths for AQA, Edexcel, OCR, and OCR MEI students.
Watch out for…
A few things to be careful with: separate horizontal and vertical motion COMPLETELY — they share only time, not velocity or acceleration; the vertical acceleration is $-g$ when 'up is positive' (so initial vertical velocity is $+u\sin(\theta)$); at the highest point the VERTICAL velocity is zero, but the horizontal velocity is unchanged at $u\cos(\theta)$; the formula $\frac{u^2 \sin(2\theta)}{g}$ for range only applies when the projectile RETURNS to the launch height — for projectiles launched from a height it does not apply directly; and air resistance is IGNORED in this model, which limits accuracy in real situations.