Physics Problem

Question

A woman flying aerobatics executes a maneuver as illustrated below. The mass of the women is 55 kg and she is traveling at a constant 235 km/hr. Construct a quantitative force diagram of all relevant forces acting on the woman flying the airplane when upside down at the top of the loop. What is the amount of force from the plane on the women (normal force)?

a. 240 N

b. 175 N

c. 120 N

d. 340 N

Answer 1

Hello, in this instance the force diagram would show both gravity and normal force pointing downwards ( to the center of the loop). This is because, in circular motion, there has to be a force which acts to pull the object inwards to the center of the loop ( otherwise the object would fly off into space in a straight line because of inertia). So both forces are pointing in the same direction which means the net force on the system is both forces added together in the downward direction.

They give you the information to solve the following

Fgravity= mass x gravity (I used 9.81m/s2)

F net= mass x acceleration

Then plug that info into this equation (which we wrote by knowing both forces were acting in the same direction)

Fnet= Fnorm+Fgravity rearrange this to solve for the unknown normal force:

F normal= Fgravity- Fnet

Hope this helps!