An airplane pilot over the Pacific sights an atoll at an angle of depression of 7°. At this time, the horizontal distance from the airplane to the atoll is 3,729 meters
What is the height of the plane to the nearest meter?
We can use trigonometry to solve this problem. Let's draw a diagram:
```
Pilot
/|
/ | height (h)
/ |
-------
Atoll d = 3729 meters
```
The angle of depression is the angle between the horizontal and the line of sight from the pilot to the atoll. Let's call this angle `A`. Then:
```
tan(A) = opposite / adjacent
```
In this case, the opposite is the height of the plane, `h`, and the adjacent is the horizontal distance, `d`. So we get:
```
tan(7°) = h / 3729
h = 3729 * tan(7°)
h ≈ 454 meters
```
So the height of the plane, to the nearest meter, is 454 meters.