Question

Two airplanes left the same airport and arrived at the same destination at the same time. The first airplane left at 8:00 a.m. and traveled at an average rate of 496 mph. The second airplane left at 8:30 a.m. and traveled at an average rate of 558 mph. How many hours did it take the first plane to travel to the destination?
Let x represent the number of hours that the first plane traveled.

Enter an equation that can be used to solve this problem in the first box.

Solve for x and enter the number of hours in the second box.


equation:

x= h

Answer 1

To answer this item, we let x be the time for the faster plane and h be the distance traveled which is the same for both planes. Distance is calculated by multiplying speed and time. Thus,
                             (558)(x) = (496)(x + 0.5)
The value of x from the equation is 4.