Based on air resistance, for example, the terminal speed of a skydiver in a belly-to-earth (i.e., face down) free fall position is about . This speed is the asymptotic limiting value of the speed, and the forces acting on the body balance each other more and more closely as the terminal speed is approached. In this example, a speed of 50% of terminal speed is reached after only about 3 seconds, while it takes 8 seconds to reach 90%, 15 seconds to reach 99% and so on.
Higher speeds can be attained if the skydiver pulls in their limbs (see also freeflying). In this case, the terminal speed increases to about , which is almost the terminal speed of the peregrine falcon diving down on its prey. The same terminal speed is reached for a typical .30-06 bullet dropping downwards—when it is returning to the ground having been fired upwards, or dropped from a tower—according to a 1920 U.S. Army Ordnance study.
Competition speed skydivers fly in a head-down position and can reach speeds of . The current record is held by Felix Baumgartner who jumped from an altitude of  and reached , though he achieved this speed at high altitude where the density of the air is much lower than at the Earth's surface, producing a correspondingly lower drag force.
The biologist J. B. S. Haldane wrote,