SOLUTION: Please help! This word problem has me stumped. An airplane covered 15 miles of its route while decreasing its altitude by 18,000 feet. Find the slope of the airplane's line of d

Question 99724: Please help! This word problem has me stumped. An airplane covered 15 miles of its route while decreasing its altitude by 18,000 feet. Find the slope of the airplane's line of descent. Round to the nearest hundredth. I just don't think I have enough information to get a solution.
Found 2 solutions by edjones, Adam:
Answer by edjones(8007) (Show Source): You can put this solution on YOUR website!
18,000/5280=3.41 mi
I drew a diagram on graph paper.
I had the plane at x=0 y=3.41 at the start of decent and at x=-15 y=0 at the end.
this gives us 2 points. (0,3.41) and (-15,0)
slope= change in y/change in x=(3.41-0)/0-(-15)=3.41/15=.227
Ed

Answer by Adam(64) (Show Source): You can put this solution on YOUR website!
First we convert miles to feet to get same units. There is 5280 feet in mile. So 15 miles is 5280*15 feet = 79200 feet. This is ratio between length and height of flight - 79200/18000. We can simplify this ratio to 22/5 (length/height).So in 22 feet plane decreases it's altitude by 5 feet. In 1 feet it decreases it's alt. by 5/22 feet.5/22 is 0.22727272... which is 0.23 rounded to nearest hundreth.
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