b. Free-fall, Vertically Fired Objects & Vectors

During the 1950’s and 1960’s, commercial air travel “took off” and became a popular way to get from point A to point B. Although they travel at great speeds, airplanes can be easily blown off course due to the prevailing winds they are flying through.

Essential Question: How can airplane pilots find the airport they are flying to and accurately estimate their arrival time when they have to deal with external factors such as the prevailing winds?

Vector diagram of forces acting on a plane

Vector addition animation

Vector addition: Does order matter?

Reaction Time Game #1 - Sheep (click on the dart to hit the sheep!)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/humanbody/sleep/sheep/

Reaction Time Game #2 - Stoplight

http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/java/stopl.html

Riverboat Simulation Page:

http://www.physicsclassroom.com/shwave/rboat.cfm

Vectors & Scalars - NASA's take