You are flying in a hot air balloon about 1.2 miles above the ground. Find the measure of the arc that represents the part of Earth you can see. Round your answer to the nearest tenth. (The radius of Earth is about 4000 miles)
We will have a right triangle that is formed by a hypotenuse of 4001.2 miles, a leg of 4000 miles and the other leg = sqrt [ 4001.2^2 - 4000^2]...(this leg = the greatest distance you can see from the balloon to the point where this leg is tangent to the Earth's circumference )
The arc measure can be found as
arctan ( sqrt ( 4001.2^2 - 4000^2 ) / 4000) ≈ 1.4°
[This doesn't sond like much because your height above the Earth's surface isn't very great ]