Question

a hang glider climbs at a 20 degree angle of elevation. Find the height of the hang glider when he has flown a horizontal distance of 60 feet. Round to the nearest tenth.

Answer 1

You need to draw a Right triangle using the information given in the exercise. See the picture below (It is not drawn to scale):

Then, you can use the following Trrogonometric function:

$\tan \alpha=\frac{opposite}{adjacent}$

In this case you can identify that:

$\begin{gathered} \alpha=20\degree \\ opposite=h \\ adjacent=60 \end{gathered}$

Therefore, substituting values and solving for "h", you get this result:

$\begin{gathered} \tan (20\degree)=\frac{h}{60} \\ \\ 60\cdot\tan (20\degree)=h \\ h\approx21.8ft \end{gathered}$

The answer is:

$21.8ft$