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Diane starts to get frustrated that the plane is off-course, so she takes the controls. Shewants to get the plane to fly at an angle of 25° North of East, with a resultantgroundspeed of 140 kilometers per hour. She knows she must "aim" the airplane at anangle that compensates for wind. At what angle should she direct the airplane to fly?

Sagot :

We know that the wind is blowing from north to south with a speed of 32 km per hour, let's call the wind vector W, then it can be written as

[tex]\vec{W}=-32\hat{j}[/tex]

We also know that Diane wants the plane to fly north of east at an angle of 25° and a speed of 140 km/h. This means that the resultant should be

[tex]\vec{R}=140\cos 24\hat{i}+140\sin 24\hat{j}[/tex]

Now, we would like to know at what angle Diane should fly tha plane. To find this we will introduce a vector T whose magnitud and direction are unknown.

Then

[tex]\vec{T}=T\cos \theta\hat{i}+T\sin \hat{j}[/tex]

Now, we know that the resultant is

[tex]\vec{R}=\vec{T}+\vec{W}[/tex]

then

[tex]\begin{gathered} 140\cos 25\hat{i}+140\sin 25\hat{j}=T\cos \theta\hat{i}+T\sin \theta\hat{j}+(-32\hat{j}) \\ 140\cos 25\hat{i}+140\sin 25\hat{j}=T\cos \theta\hat{i}+(T\sin \theta-32)\hat{j} \end{gathered}[/tex]

Since the unit vector i and j are independent this gives us two equations

[tex]\begin{gathered} 140\cos 25=T\cos \theta \\ 140\sin 25=T\sin \theta-32 \end{gathered}[/tex]

From the first equation we have that

[tex]T=\frac{140\cos 25}{\cos \theta}[/tex]

Plugging the value of T in the second equation we have

[tex]140\sin 25=(\frac{140\cos25}{\cos\theta})\sin \theta-32[/tex]

Now we need to solve this equation for theta.

[tex]\begin{gathered} 140\sin 25=(\frac{140\cos25}{\cos\theta})\sin \theta-32 \\ 140\sin 25+32=(140\cos 25)\frac{\sin \theta}{\cos \theta} \\ \frac{\sin\theta}{\cos\theta}=\frac{140\sin 25+32}{140\cos 25} \end{gathered}[/tex]

Now we have to remember that

[tex]\frac{\sin\theta}{\cos\theta}=\tan \theta[/tex]

hence

[tex]\begin{gathered} \tan \theta=\frac{145\sin 25+32}{145\cos 25} \\ \theta=\tan ^{-1}(\frac{145\sin 25+32}{145\cos 25}) \\ \theta=35.7 \end{gathered}[/tex]

Therefore Diane has to direct the airplane at an angle of 35.7° North of east.