Question

An accelerometer-a device to measure acceleration-can be as simple as a small pendulum. Suppose you are flying a small plane in a straight horizontal line and your accelerometer hangs 14.00° behind the vertical, opposite the direction of motion. What is your acceleration?

Answer 1

g tan(14°) = 2.44 m/s^2

Step-by-step explanation:

If the pendulum is static, the tension will give us the magnitude of the acceleration of the plane.

Let T the tension of the pendulum and a the acceleration of the plane

The y-axis equation states that:

T cos(14) = mg

Similarly, for the x-axis

T sin(14) = ma

Dividing these equations we get

sin(14) /cos(15) = tan(15) = a/g

And solving for a:

a = g * tan(15)