Often when figuring out the distance to a faraway object, you know an angle and one length but need to know a second leg of a triangle.
Measuring bank slope
Measuring bank slope
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To figure out the missing side, you will substitute values into one of the trig formulas above, and solve for the missing value. For example, if you know the side adjacent to the angle and need to know the hypotenuse, you can use the formula for cosine and solve for the length you need.