At an altitude.....

Question

At an altitude of 3300 feet, the engine on a small plane fails. What angle of depression is needed to reach an airport runway that is 3 miles away by land? (Round your answer to the nearest tenth of a degree.)

Answer 1

plane

  |

  | 3300 feet

  | 

  |             15,840 feet          θ

  ---------------------------------------- runway

 

The plane is 3miles*5280 feet per mile = 15,840 feet from the runway.  The angle of depression, θ, is the angle from the runway to the plane along the hypotenuse of the triangle.

 

Tanθ = 3300/15840 = 0.01894

 

θ = tan^-1(0.01894) = 6.31^o