Question

Juanito is flying a kite at the park and realizes that all 500 feet of string are out. Margie measures the angle of the string with the ground with her clinometer and finds it to be 42.5. How high is Juanito’s kite above ground?

Answer 1

Answer:

Step-by-step explanation:

This is right triangle trig.  The kite string represents the hypotenuse of the triangle, the angle of inclination is 42.5, and we are looking for the height of the kite from the ground, which is the side opposite the angle.  This is the sin ratio:

$sin\theta=\frac{opposite}{hypotenuse}$

Filling in:

$sin(42.5)=\frac{x}{500}$ and

500 sin(42.5) = x

On your calculator, multiply 500 by the sin(42.5) in degree mode to get that

x = 337.8 feet