SOLUTION: A jet plane makes a 4800 km trip to Europe in 5 hours, but takes 6 hours for the return trip. If the speed of wind is constant and throughout the trip, what is the speed of wind an

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Question 179770: A jet plane makes a 4800 km trip to Europe in 5 hours, but takes 6 hours for the return trip. If the speed of wind is constant and throughout the trip, what is the speed of wind and what is the speed of the plane in still air?
Answer by solver91311(24713)   (Show Source): You can put this solution on YOUR website!

The ground speed of the aircraft for the trip to Europe is given by kilometers per hour. The ground speed for the return trip is given by kmph.

When going in the same direction as the wind, i.e. the trip to Europe, the wind speed adds to the aircraft's air speed to form the ground speed. On the return, the wind speed subtracts from the air speed to form the ground speed.

This relationship gives us the following system of linear equations:





Since the coefficients on in the two equations are additive inverses, add the two equations term-by-term:



Solve:



Hence, the aircraft air speed is 880 kmph, and the wind speed must be kmph


Super-Double-Plus Extra Credit: From the information given in the problem can you determine the wind velocity? If not, what additional data element would you require?


John
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