A)
To approach the runway, a pilot of a small plane must begin a 20° descent starting from a height of 3,760 feet above the ground.
triangle
To the nearest tenth of a mile, how many miles from the runway is the airplane at the start of this approach? The figure is not drawn to scale.
(1 point)
To calculate how many miles from the runway the airplane is at the start of the approach, we can use trigonometry.
Let x be the distance from the airplane to the runway at the start of the approach.
Since the airplane is descending at a 20° angle, we can use the tangent function:
tan(20°) = (3760 / x)
Solving for x, we get:
x = 3760 / tan(20°)
x ≈ 10115.2 feet
Converting feet to miles (1 mile = 5280 feet), we get:
x ≈ 1.9 miles
Therefore, the airplane is approximately 1.9 miles from the runway at the start of this approach.