Question

Your altitude is 40,000 feet and you detect a target at a depression angle of 6 degrees and a range of 20 miles. what is the altitude of the target? Draw a picture.

Answer 1

first you would want to convert feet to miles or vice versa. Then, youll want to build the triangle because you start at 40,000 feet and then that goes at a six degree angle along the x axis for 20 miles. So you will want to put this on a cartesian plane because from there you will want to determine whether you need to use the law of cosines or the law of sines.

Answer 2

ignoring the curvature of the earth, I made a sketch and had the altitude of the target as x feet,
then
sin 6° = (40000-x)/105600
105600 sin6° = 40000 - x
x = 40000 - 105600sin 6° = appr. 28962 feet