An aircraft on a reconnaissance mission takes off from its home base and flies 550 miles at a bearing of S 46° E to a location i
n the sea. It then flies 483 miles from the sea at a bearing of S 55° W to another location. Finally, the aircraft flies straight back from the second location to its base. What is the total distance it flies, rounded to the nearest mile?
If you're solving for the length of that side just use the pythagorean theorem so the hypotenuse or your missing side equals: <span> hypotenuse = square root ( 5.5^2 + 4.83^3 ) hypotenuse = square root (30.25 + 23.3289) </span><span>hypotenuse = square root (53.5789) </span><span>hypotenuse = 7.32 </span> So, the total distance is 7.32 miles.
