On a graph paper, make a vector diagram showin an airplane heading south-west at 600knots and encountering a wind blowing from the west. Show the plane's resultant velocity when the wind blows at 30 knots

Question

anonymous · Answer

@whpalmer4

whpalmer4 · Answer

|dw:1389240626455:dw|

whpalmer4 · Answer

The 600 and 30 legs should be drawn to the same scale, obviously!

whpalmer4 · Answer

Draw all the components (A/C flying s/w at 600 kt, wind blowing from west at 30 kt, etc.) at the same scale, connecting the start of each one to the finish of previous one.  Then draw an arrow from the starting point to the ending point of the chain, and that's your resultant vector.

anonymous · Answer

lol I drew the same thing, walked away from the PC to do something, and the same drawing was up.

anonymous · Answer

Since no accurate bears were given, you should be able to assume from the instructions that:|dw:1389240962747:dw|
Angle-side-angle, law of cosines will finish it up.

whpalmer4 · Answer

or an accurate drawing plus a ruler!  they do just ask to show the resultant velocity, and a scale diagram would do so...

anonymous · Answer

omg just kill me now. so for 60 knots you can assume that its 45 degree?

whpalmer4 · Answer

no, the 45 degree assumption came from "south-west" without any further details.  90 degrees between compass points, so halfway in between is 45 degrees.

anonymous · Answer

oh mkmkmk

anonymous · Answer

the resulting velocity will be slightly less than the 600 knots that the plane is trying to fly, due to a slight head-cross wind. Law of cos will find it...

whpalmer4 · Answer

If you like to play while learning to get a better feel for the concepts, try this out: http://demonstrations.wolfram.com/HeadToToeVectorAddition/