Question

Question: A man standing in a field in New Hampshire sees Cannon Mountain in front of him. He knows that the height of Cannon Mountain is 4080 feet high and that he is 3 miles from the base. If he is looking at the top of the mountain through binoculars, what is his angle of elevation (in degrees) to the top?

Answer 1

First step is to convert the miles to feet
1 mile = 5280 feet

3 miles x 5280 feet = 15,840 feet.
 now both the height and distance is in feet
 
the angle of elevation is found by calculating the arctan of the height/ distance

arctan(4080 / 15840) = 14.44 degrees

round the answer if needed.