Adam wishes to travel from Paradise, to Cove located 500 km N60degreesW. The groundspeed of the plane is 380 km/h. The wind is from S80degreesE at 85 km/h.

Question

anonymous · Answer

a) In what direction should Adam steer?
b) What will the plane's airspeed be?
c) How long will the trip take?

Here is what I've drawn so far:

|dw:1348195747350:dw|

richyw · Answer

You know the vector, $\vec{d}$, that represents the displacement from paradise to cove.
You know the vector, $\vec{v}_w$, that represents the wind velocity
You know the magnitude of the vector, $\vec{v}_p$, that represents the planes airspeed. 

so if you want to travel from paradise to cove, the direction of $\vec{v}_{total}=\vec{v}_w+\vec{v}_p$ must be in the same direction as $\vec{d}$.

This is assuming that your teacher got "groundspeed" and "airspeed" confused, because usually a plane would have a constant airspeed, and the groundspeed would vary with the wind...