Question

After flying at an altitude of 500m, a helicopter starts to descend when its ground distance from the landing pad is 11 kilometers. What is the angle of depression for the flight?

Answer 1

2.603 degrees

Explanation:

This word problem is talking about a triangle. 500 meters high would be the height and 11 Kilometers would be the base. We should convert kilometers to meters in order to make this easier. 11 kilometers = 11,000 meters.

Height = 500

Base = 11,000

The hypotenuse ends up being 11,011.35777

in order to find the angle of depression (assuming it is a constant rate) we would measure the angle where the hypotenuse meets the base. (11,000 & 11,011.35777) the angle comes out at 2.603 degrees. Hope this helped!