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But obviously there is something wrong with the direction.

Posted by Sphinx on August 25, 2003

In Reply to: Sorry, 1941 posted by GPP on August 24, 2003

: : : It's impossible to determine in which direction the airplanes are headed from the information given.
: : : The observer (presumably on Oahu) has only stated that by looking to the east-northeast, he/she saw airplanes about 210 kilometers away.

: Hi, sphinx. In this instance, it was EAH who erased your original question, so you can see how doing so confuses the thread. What you had asked was,
: "'A reporter at a detector station out in the Pacific saw a large flight of airplanes about 210 kilometers from Oahu to the east-northeast.'

: (What ON EARTH direction are Japanese airplanes flying in? Are they from the east-northeast, or are they flying east-northeast?)"

: EAH is entirely correct in saying that seeing the planes in a given direction from the viewer gives no indication of the direction in which they were flying, but I understood your original question to be, what does the word "to" mean in this context? It means "in the direction of" east-northeast from the observer. Thus, assuming the reporter saw the planes on their approach, they were coming from E-NE. But even if the reporter only saw them on their return, or while they were circling around for their best bombing approach, they were "to" the reporter's E-NE, that is, E-NE from the reporter.

Japanese planes, of course, should emerge from the west!

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