Helicopter problem (Higher)

June 19th, 2009

This is a worked solution to a problem involving the firing of a missile from a moving helicopter. It analyses motion vectors into orthogonal component vectors, then uses these results to answer the question “where will the missile land?”. The problem as posed was: A helicopter travelling at an angle of 10^o up from the horizontal at a speed of 70 m s^{-1} fires a missile at 150 m s^{-1}. Calculate the horizontal and vertical components of the velocity of the helicopter and the missile. If the helicopter launches the missile at a height of 200 m, how far away does the missile land?

Categories: Higher Physics | Tags: , , , | Comments Off