This feel-good, true story is about a group of West Virginia high
school boys during the Sputnik era who form a rocket club and
overcome a host of adversities such as their parents, girlfriends,
sports teams, school administrators, and the law, as well as
technical problems, to go on to successfully launch a series of
rockets and ultimately take first place at the National Science
Fair. The given coordinates in UTM: 15T E486893 N4921020
would take you to the middle of a high school football field.
There's no cache there but that was the spot from which one of the
rockets in "October Sky" was fired and the place which we'll use to
launch our hypothetical one. Assume the following:
- The rocket was fired from the location given.
- The terrain is level.
- Immediately after lift-off it achieved an initial speed of 75
meters/sec
- The constant of gravitation is -9.8 meters/sec/sec.
- Air friction (drag) is negligible.
- The angle of inclination of the launch ramp was 60°.
- The direction was straight east.
- There was a crosswind from the south of 7 meters/sec throughout
the flight.
In the movie, the boys were accused (and assumed guilty) of
starting a forest fire with one of their rockets. To prove their
innocence they had to calculate where their rocket landed. At first
they couldn't find it because they hadn't taken the wind drift into
account. But given a second chance they did and they made the
find.
Use metric terms. The UTM coordinates are in meters as are the
data given. For a reference, see any good high school physics or
calculus text.
You can check your answers within 8 meters:
click here..
Please ask for hints or explanations.