Question

You are an air traffic controller directing the pilot of a plane on a hyperbolic flight path. You and another air traffic controller from a different airport sent radio signals to the pilot simultaneously. The two airports are 48 km apart. The pilot's instrument panel tell him that signal from your airport always arrives 100 microseconds before the signal from the other airport. If the signals travel at a rate of 33 m/ms, what is the difference in distances from the plane to the two airports? Write the equation of the flight path. Draw the hyperbola. which branch represents the flight path?

Answer 1

Make a drawing, write down what you know and go from there. That's half the work.

Answer 2

ok...but I don't know how to visualize the flight as a hyperbola. Is it like the plane is going up and then down, or that the plane is flying on a curve? And how do I figure out the distances?

Answer 3

I'm not sure about the flight path...