A plane is descending at 12 degrees angle of depression if the current altitude of the plane is 1,000 feet find the distance the plane still needs to fly to reach the ground. Round the answer to the nearest foot.
To find the distance the plane still needs to travel to reach the ground, we can use trigonometry.
Since the angle of depression is 12 degrees, the angle between the plane's altitude and the ground is 90 degrees - 12 degrees = 78 degrees.
Using the tangent function (tan), we can set up the following equation:
tan(78 degrees) = altitude / distance
tan(78) = 1000 / distance
distance = 1000 / tan(78)
distance ≈ 1000 / 6.75
distance ≈ 148.15 feet
Therefore, the distance the plane still needs to fly to reach the ground is approximately 148 feet.