Guest: A airplane travels N 62 degrees E at 400 mi/hr. there is wind at 20mi/hr due west. what is the actual speed of the plane.
I know how the picture looks but i dont know how to solve the length without using trigonometry because i doesnt make a right triangle. please help
Why do you think that you are supposed to do this without trigonometry? You can't.
I am very rusty at questions like this but to the best of my knowledge this answer is correct
Looking at my diagram I get
Easterly velocity = (400cos28) - 20 km/hour
Northerly velocity = 400sin28 km/hour
Finding the norm of the vectors, I get
velocity =SQRT{ [(400cos28) - 20]
2 + [ 400sin28 ]
2 }
oh dear, I forgot to put the miles into the 'miles/hour' on my north and east vectors. Oh well, they are there, they are just invisable.
140124 Vector question.JPG
+118654 
