Chapter 4, Problem 88P

Long flights at midlatitudes in the Northern Hemisphere encounter the jet stream, an eastward airflow that can affect a plane’s speed relative to Earth’s surface. If a pilot maintains a certain speed relative to the air (the plane’s airspeed), the speed relative to the surface (the plane’s ground speed) is more when the flight is in the direction of the jet stream and less when the flight is opposite the jet stream. Suppose a round-trip flight is scheduled between two cities separated by 4000 km, with the outgoing flight in the direction of the jet stream and the return flight opposite it. The airline computer advises an airspeed of 1000 km/h, for which the difference in flight times for the outgoing and return flights is 70.0 min. What jet-stream speed is the computer using?