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Home > PC3 > Chapter 11 > Lesson 11.1.4 > Problem 11-80

11-80.

A golf ball is hit at an angle of with an initial velocity of ft/s. If the ball was struck from the ground, how long was it in the air and how far will it travel down the fairway?

Math Notes

Projectile Motion

An object that is launched with an initial position of  and an initial velocity of and an angle of will travel along a path defined by the parametric function:

 

where and are measured in feet and is measured in seconds.

First determine how long the ball was in the air, that is, when does the ball hit the ground or have a height of ?
This is done by solving .
Once this time is known, it can be used to calculate the horizontal distance traveled.