An airplane covered 21 miles of its route while decreasing its altitude by 46,000 feet. How do you find the slope of the airplane's line of descent?

1 Answer
Nov 6, 2015

.41486291486...

Explanation:

Think of the problem as a right triangle.

The airplane has traveled 21 miles of its distance, which is along the x-axis. Thus, the horizontal line has a length of 21 miles. But, you want to convert this to feet, as the other given unit is in feet.

21 * 5280 = 110880 feet

The airplane has also dropped 46000 feet. This can be represented as a vertical line with a length of 46000 feet.

We now have the total change in x (110880 feet) and the total change in y (46000 feet).

The airplane's line of descent is the hypotenuse of the two lines we determined.

To calculate the slope of this line, simply use the idea of (rise)/(run), or (Delta y)/(Delta x). We know both values, so we can calculate the slope.

Slope of hypotenuse = slope of airplane's line of descent =

46000/110880

= .41486291486...