SOLUTION: A light plane flew from its home base to an airport 255 miles away. With a head wind, the trip took 1.7 hours. The return trip with a tail wind took 1.5 hours. Find average airspee

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Question 1010832: A light plane flew from its home base to an airport 255 miles away. With a head wind, the trip took 1.7 hours. The return trip with a tail wind took 1.5 hours. Find average airspeed of the plane and the average windspeed.
Found 2 solutions by josgarithmetic, Alan3354:
Answer by josgarithmetic(39621)   (Show Source): You can put this solution on YOUR website!
VARIABLE ASSIGMENTS
-----------------------------------------------------------
y=1.7 hours        time with the wind
x=1.5 hours        time against the wind
d=255 miles        trip distance
r miles per hour   unknown plane speed without any wind
w miles per hour   speed of the wind


                   speed       time      distance
AGAINST Wind       r-w          y          d
WITH Wind          r+w          x          d


System of equations,

SOLUTION ALGEBRA STEPS



-
substitute into the other equation.







-----This can be evaluated using the assigned values.
-
Use the formula for w to find a formula for r.







------Evaluate using the variable assignments.
Answer by Alan3354(69443)   (Show Source): You can put this solution on YOUR website!
A light plane flew from its home base to an airport 255 miles away. With a head wind, the trip took 1.7 hours. The return trip with a tail wind took 1.5 hours. Find average airspeed of the plane and the average windspeed.
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Find the 2 groundspeeds, upwind and downwind.
The plane's airspeed is the average of the 2.
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Windspeed is the difference between airspeed and groundspeed.
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