The house where I live has a very large tree in the front yard. Many branches drop on a daily basis, and out of curiosity I have begun measuring the weight (grams) of those branches and taking a photo of their shape. Whilst there is some variation in the shape of the branches, for this particular species (Eucalyptus grandis) many of the branches look a little bit like straight arrows with fletching of leaves/ nuts at the ends - I assume this arrow like shape of the branch influences air resistance and the direction and rate of fall?

Strangely, when I look in the literature, I can't find a lot of data on this (velocity and impact energy for different tree branch shape/ sizes/ drop heights). Alternatively, there is quite an amount on falling fruit (coconuts for example) and a HUGE amount on offshore oil rigs (risk of tools falling from scaffolding onto workers).

Is it a fair comparison to say that living under a very large tree is like living on an offshore oil rig platform and the risks associated with that could be calculated/ estimated for different species according to the tree height and branch form/ architecture? Could/ should this be done (like they have done for dropping tools off an oil rig)? On an aside, what may be the ecological advantages to a "rapid" falling branch versus a slow falling branch. For example, could a more rapidly falling branch lead to higher impact fall leading to a better shake out seed from pods?