Airplane position and velocity from two radar stations

[hkapoor]

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

An airplane is being tracked by two radar station which are a distance "s" apart from each other. Each radar station can measure the angle between the horizontal and the line from the station to the airplane and can measure the rate of change of the angle.

Your data are :
Distance s = 1600 m

Angles :
α = 40 o
β = 60 o

Angular velocities :
alpha= 1.7 o/sec
beta= 2.7 o/sec

Enter the x- and y-component of the position :

Enter the x- and y-component of the velocity :

 

[Redbelly98]

Welcome to PF

For starters, try drawing a right triangle using the angle α and the point M. Then use what you know about trig to relate α and the x,y coordinates of M.

 

[hkapoor]

I don't have the x,y coordinates of M. just the distance from point 1 to 2.

 

[Redbelly98]

For now, the x,y coordinates of M are just "x" and "y". The idea is to set up some equations from which you can figure out their values.