Paper 4, Section I, B
Part IA, 2013
A hot air balloon of mass is equipped with a bag of sand of mass which decreases in time as the sand is gradually released. In addition to gravity the balloon experiences a constant upwards buoyancy force and we neglect air resistance effects. Show that if is the upward speed of the balloon then
Initially at the mass of sand is and the balloon is at rest in equilibrium. Subsequently the sand is released at a constant rate and is depleted in a time . Show that the speed of the balloon at time is
[You may use without proof the indefinite integral ]