Question

A kite is flying 70 feet above the ground and is attached to a string tied to a stake on the ground. The angle of elevation formed by the string and the ground is 40°. Find the length of the string to the nearest foot.

Answer 1

If you draw a diagram of this, your given values of the resulting triangle give you the sides opposite and adjacent of the angle. The formula that uses these sides is tangent.

The tangent of an angle is equal to the ratio of the opposite side over the other non-hypotenuse side (adjacent).

Therefore;

$tan(40)=70/x$
$0.83909963117=70/x$
$0.83909963117x=70$
$x=70/0.83909963117$
$x=83.4227514823$

Where x is the length of the string in feet.