SOLUTION: It takes a plane 8 hours to fly 1280 miles with the wind. If it takes it 12 hours and 48 minutes to cover the same distance when flying against the wind, find the spped of the win

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Question 421998: It takes a plane 8 hours to fly 1280 miles with the wind. If it takes it 12 hours and 48 minutes to cover the same distance when flying against the wind, find the spped of the wind in miles per hour.
Answer by solver91311(24713) About Me  (Show Source):
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Let represent the air speed of the aircraft and let represent the wind speed. When the aircraft is flying in the same direction as the wind, the ground speed is . When the aircraft is flying against the wind the ground speed is .

The average ground speed is the distance traveled divided by the time. Hence the average ground speed while flying with the wind is . The average ground speed flying against the wind is (Note: 6 minutes is 1/10 of an hour, so 48 minutes is 8/10s of an hour)





Multiply the 2nd equation by -1 and then add the two equations:





John

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