Question

Earth has a radius of 6371 kilometers. A pilot is flying at a steady altitude of 6.6 kilometers above the earth's surface.

What is the pilot's distance to the horizon?

Answer 1

you have to mutiply 6371 x 6.6

and the answer will be 190

Answer 2

290.07 kilometers

Explanation:

We are given that the radius of the Earth is 6371 kilometers and a pilot is flying at a steady altitude of 6.6 kilometers above the earth's surface.

This forms a right angled triangle where the distance of pilot to the horizon is one leg of the right angled triangle and hypotenuse is (6371 + 6.6) = 6377.6 km.

While the other leg is the radius of Earth (6371 km).

Therefore, the pilot's distance to the horizon =
`√(6377.6^2-6371^2)` = 290.07 kilometers.