I decided to run a few simple trajectories of a ball launched at 45 deg at various speeds with and without air resistance. With air resistance you need about 70 fps launch speed to get from the far corner to the basket (about 55 feet). Expand the table to see other ranges with different speeds. The table also has kinetic energy and an rpm for a launch wheel that would have a tangential speed equal to the ball speed. [update 1/16/2012: the kinetic energy values and weight must be multiplied by approximately a factor of 2 due to weight error in excel sheet]
A launch angle of 45 degrees doesn’t necessarily give the maximum launch range when drag is present. Typically a lower angle of around 40 gives more range. An Excel calculation sheet is available here . It does simple integration to take into account the nonlinearity of the air drag. Click on the table below to expand it. Here is a link to Brandon Gunn 2151 nice Excel trajectory generator.
