SOLUTION: A plane passes over your head at an altitude of 5000 feet. Two seconds later you observe that it's angle of elevation is 42�. How far did the plane travel during those two seconds?

Question 950200: A plane passes over your head at an altitude of 5000 feet. Two seconds later you observe that it's angle of elevation is 42�. How far did the plane travel during those two seconds? How fast in miles per hour was a plane traveling? Is it a commercial airliner or military aircraft? How do you know? Round all word to the nearest whole number
Answer by ankor@dixie-net.com(22740) (Show Source): You can put this solution on YOUR website!
A plane passes over your head at an altitude of 5000 feet.
Two seconds later you observe that it's angle of elevation is 42�.
How far did the plane travel during those two seconds?
How fast in miles per hour was a plane traveling?
Is it a commercial airliner or military aircraft? How do you know? Round all word to the nearest whole number
:
A right triangle is formed by the vertical from your position to plane when it was overhead. The the path of plane in 2 second and an angle of 48 degrees
(90-42=48). Use the tangent of 48 degrees, side opposite (s) is the path of the plane and side adjacent is 5000 ft
tan(48) =
s = 5000 * 1.11
s = 5553 ft in 2 sec
that's
5553/2 = 2776.5 ft/sec
Convert to mph
= 1893 mph obviously only a military plane goes that fast
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