Angles of elevation and depression

Question

A blimp provides aerial television views of a football game. The television camera sights the stadium at an 11° angle of depression. The altitude of the blimp is 500 meters. Which of the following is the line-of-sight distance from the television camera to the base of the stadium? Round to the nearest hundred meter.

Answer 1

This forms a right triangle. Since opposite angles of a line intersecting parallel lines are equal, the angle of elevation from the base of the stadium to the blimp camera is also 11°.

sin(11°) = opposite/hypotenuse = 500/line_of_sight_distance=500/h

h = 500/sin(11°)

Use your calculator to compute h, making sure the angle-mode is set to degrees.