Question

Hawks and gannets soar above the ground and, when they spot prey, they fold their wings and essentially drop like a stone. They have evolved a highly aerodynamic shape that lets gravity build up their speed without having to make the effort of trying to fly at a high speed (See the figure of a diving hawk below. The technical term for this maneuver is "stooping".) For this problem, you may approximate the strength of the gravitational field as g = 10 N/kg.A. If a hawk is slowly soaring at a height of about 150 meters and spots a vole on the ground, folds its wings and begins its dive, with what speed will it be going when it gets to the ground? It's flight isn't powered: it just falls with an acceleration of ~10 m/s2. (Of course, it has to turn a bit above the ground in order not to crash. We will ignore this part of its flight path.)

Answer 1

Answer:

  v = 54.2 m / s

Explanation:

Let's use energy conservation for this problem.

Starting point Higher

         Em₀ = U = m g h

Final point. Lower

        $Em_{f}$ = K = ½ m v²

        Em₀ = Em_{f}

        m g h = ½ m v²

         v² = 2gh

         v = √ 2gh

Let's calculate

         v = √ (2 9.8 150)

         v = 54.2 m / s