A)

To approach the runway, a pilot of a small plane must begin a 20° descent starting from a height of 3,760 feet above the ground.

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To the nearest tenth of a mile, how many miles from the runway is the airplane at the start of this approach? The figure is not drawn to scale.

(1 point)

1 answer

To calculate how many miles from the runway the airplane is at the start of the approach, we can use trigonometry.

Let x be the distance from the airplane to the runway at the start of the approach.

Since the airplane is descending at a 20° angle, we can use the tangent function:

tan(20°) = (3760 / x)

Solving for x, we get:

x = 3760 / tan(20°)

x ≈ 10115.2 feet

Converting feet to miles (1 mile = 5280 feet), we get:

x ≈ 1.9 miles

Therefore, the airplane is approximately 1.9 miles from the runway at the start of this approach.