SOLUTION: an airplane is 12000 ft horizontally from the airport. the slanted distance to the airport is 13000 ft. what is the plane's altitude? i need to know what formula to use, not n

Question 312710: an airplane is 12000 ft horizontally from the airport. the slanted distance to the airport is 13000 ft. what is the plane's altitude?

i need to know what formula to use, not necessarly the answer. I would really appreciate it. thanks!!!
Found 2 solutions by Fombitz, solver91311:
Answer by Fombitz(32388) (Show Source): You can put this solution on YOUR website!
The altitude and the horizontal distance are legs of a right triangle where the slanted distance is the hypotenuse.
Use the Pythagorean theorem to solve for the altitude since the hypotenuse and the long leg of the triangle are known.
Good luck!
Answer by solver91311(24713) (Show Source): You can put this solution on YOUR website!

Use the Pythagorean Theorem:

Which is to say

For your problem

Save yourself some time squaring those huge numbers. Square 12 and subtract the result from 13 squared. Take the square root of the result. Then multiply by 1000 to scale your answer back to where you started.

The other thing you could do is recognize that you have two numbers in a Pythagorean Triple, namely 13 and 12. The third number is 5.

John

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