Unreasonable Results
A commercial airplane has an air speed of 280 m/s due east and flies with a strong tailwind. It travels 3000 km in a direction 5º south of east in 1.50 h. (a) What was the velocity of the plane relative to the ground? (b) Calculate the magnitude and direction of the tailwind’s velocity. (c) What is unreasonable about both of these velocities? (d) Which premise is unreasonable?
Solution 69PE
We are given two different situations of the plane’s flight. We need to calculate the plane and tailwind velocities with respect to the ground. We are also required to find out in there is any anomaly in the given situation.
Part a
Step 1 of 3
To understand the situation given, let us have a look at the following figure.
The plane travels 3000 km in 1.5 h.
Calculate the velocity of the plane first.
km/h
m/s
m/s
Note that this is the velocity of the plane at 50 south of east.
