Question

Howard is standing 85 yards from the bottom of a water reservoir. He estimates that the angle of elevation to the top of the water reservoir is about 65°. About how far is Howard from the top of the water reservoir?

Answer 1

Howard is about 193.9 yards from the top of the reservoir.

This is a trigonometry problem. If you draw a picture of the situation, you will see that you have an adjacent side and need to know the hypotenuse.

That makes it a cosine problem:

cos(64) = 85/x
x = 85/cos(64)
x = 193.9

He is about 193.9 yards from the top of the reservoir.