How far will the bird fall vertically while traveling horizontally a distance of 104 m?

Question

The peregrine falcon is the fastest bird, flying at a speed of 200 mi/h. Nature has adapted the bird to reach such a speed by placing baffles in its nose to prevent air from rushing in and slowing it down. Also, the bird's eyes adjust their focus faster than the eyes of any other creature, so the falcon can focus quickly on its prey. Assume that a peregrine falcon is moving horizontally at its top speed at a height of 100 m above the ground when it brings its wings into its sides and begins to drop in free fall. How far will the bird fall vertically while traveling horizontally a distance of 104 m?

Answer 1

okay, here's what you need to do...

1) convert the bird's speed, 200 mi/h into SI units of meters per second. This will give you the bird's forward velocity.

2) Find out how long (in seconds) it took the bird to go forward 104 m. do this using d = vt, where you plug in d as 104 and v as the velocity of the bird in m/s (from part 1)

3) you now know how long the bird is moving without lift. since movement in the up/down direction is completely independant of the horizontal plane, the bird's forward velocity no longer has meaning to us. You now can solve for the distance fallen by the equation:

D= (0.5)*G*T^2

where D is going to be your answer, G is the acceleration due to gravity (9.81), and T is the time you found in part 2. there's your answer

EDIT: Jason, your answer is correct but the equation you gave for gravitational blegh is not because you forgot to divide by half to get the appropriate falling distance. at any rate, let the person at least do SOME of their own homework.

Answer 2

At the point when the bird starts to fall, it s speed would be assumed at 0 m/hr.Accordingly, from the potential energy(mgh) can establish it s mass and then it s new speed can be obtained from 1/2 m v 2.

Answer 3

Not enough information. You CAN'T ignore air resistance when you're talking about 200-mph birds, even in dive-bombing trim! What's its frontal area and drag coefficient? BTW, this would take a simulation, not analytic math, to get the answer.

Answer 4

3.62 m

convert 200 mph to 321.8 kph
convert to 89.4 m/s
divide by 104 m to get .86 seconds (travel time)
formula for the acceleration is a(t^2)
(.5)-9.8 (.86^2) = 3.62m

theoretically not taking air resistance into account of course

Answer 5

with a big bang

Answer 6

till it hits the ground.....