Question

A jet plane traveling at 500 mph overtakes a propeller plane traveling at 200 mph that had a ​4-hour head start. How far from the starting point are the​ planes?

Answer 1

Distance = speed * time.

For the first plane, distance = 500t

For the second plane, it’s been traveling t + 4 hours compared to the first plane. So it’s distance is 200(t+4)

They are now at the same point, so you can set the distance equations equal to each other and solve for t.

Once you have t, you can plug t into either distance equation to find the distance from the starting point.