APPLY IT
Find Distances in the Coordinate Plane

Practice What You’ve Learned
Keeping the Distance

Have you ever traveled by airplane? If so, did you notice other planes in the sky out the window?

Each day thousands of airplanes are in the sky at the same time. Although airplanes have complex computers on board to help pilots navigate from place to place, it is the job of an air traffic controller, on the ground, to watch the airplanes on a radar screen and make sure that they are a safe distance from each other at each point in the flight.

An air traffic controller must know the location of every aircraft in the sky within a certain geographic boundary.


Planes on the (Coordinate) Plane
In order to describe where each aircraft is in the sky, coordinates are assigned to each plane. By using points on a coordinate plane on the radar screen, air traffic controllers can figure out the distance between planes.

Safe practice says that all commercial aircraft in the air need to be separated by a minimum distance on all sides. The required distance depends on many factors, including the type and size of aircraft as well as what stage of the flight the aircraft is in.


Now It’s Your Turn: How Far Apart?
If you know the coordinates of two airplanes, you can use the coordinates to find the distance between the planes.

Give it a try on the next page.