You are at 6,000 feet and cleared to climb to FL260. You have 40 miles to reach the target altitude. What climb angle is required?

You are at 6,000 feet and cleared to climb to FL260. You have 40 miles to reach the target altitude. What climb angle is required?

• A. 3 degrees
• B. 4 degrees
• C. 6 degrees
• D. 5 degrees

Answer: (D)

Climb angle is found from how much you rise versus how far you travel horizontally, so tan(angle) equals the altitude gain divided by the horizontal distance. Here you start at 6,000 ft and need to reach 26,000 ft, a rise of 20,000 ft. The distance to go is 40 nautical miles. Convert that distance to feet (40 NM × 6,076 ft/NM ≈ 243,040 ft). So tan(angle) = 20,000 / 243,040 ≈ 0.0823. The angle is arctan(0.0823), which is about 4.7 degrees. The option that matches this is about five degrees, so that is the best choice. This climb corresponds to a climb gradient of roughly 1 in 12 (rise over run ≈ 8.2%), a common steady-climb target. If you used statute miles for the distance, you’d still land near five degrees, since 40 statute miles gives a similar result.

Climb angle is found from how much you rise versus how far you travel horizontally, so tan(angle) equals the altitude gain divided by the horizontal distance.

Here you start at 6,000 ft and need to reach 26,000 ft, a rise of 20,000 ft. The distance to go is 40 nautical miles. Convert that distance to feet (40 NM × 6,076 ft/NM ≈ 243,040 ft). So tan(angle) = 20,000 / 243,040 ≈ 0.0823. The angle is arctan(0.0823), which is about 4.7 degrees.

The option that matches this is about five degrees, so that is the best choice. This climb corresponds to a climb gradient of roughly 1 in 12 (rise over run ≈ 8.2%), a common steady-climb target. If you used statute miles for the distance, you’d still land near five degrees, since 40 statute miles gives a similar result.