Question

An airplane is 25 mi from an airport at an altitude of 2 1/2 mi what angle of descent (depression) will take the plane directly to the airport? Express your answer to the nearest degree.

Answer 1

We can represent the situation with a right triangle with hipotenuse 25 mi and height 2.5 mi. Then, the angle of descent x is expressed by:

`\begin{gathered} \sin x=(2.5)/(25)=0.1 \\ x=\sin^(-1)0.1\approx6\degree \end{gathered}`