how many air kilometres is it from the spire dublin to the statue of
liberty new york

Hello johnyirish-ga

Thank-you for your question.

The Spire in Dublin is located at N53.21 W06.15 in terms of latitude
and longitude.  The Statue of Liberty is located at N40.41 W74.01.

These details were obtained here:
http://reference.allrefer.com/gazetteer/S/S15643-statue-of-liberty-national-monument.html
http://irish.typepad.com/irisheyes/2005/05/reorienting_goo.html

You can then use one of the many online distance calculators to do the
hard work of converting these numbers to a distance.  I used the one
at:
http://www.export911.com/convert/distaCaIc.htm

If you input the above values into the calculator you will discover
that The Spire is approximately 5124km from the Statue of Liberty.

If you require any further information on this subject please do not
hesitate to ask for clarification and I will do my best to respond
swiftly.

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Request for Answer Clarification by johnyirish-ga on 27 Aug 2005 13:21 PDT

tanx that was very fast

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Clarification of Answer by palitoy-ga on 27 Aug 2005 13:32 PDT

Glad I could help!

Is this a silly question but are air km,s the same as road km,s and if
not how many air km,s are there in 5124 road km,s

Ivenus,
Air kilometers/miles are the shortest distance between two points on
the earth, like a piece of string stretched between them on a globe,
hence the answer based on geographical coordinates and using software
for the calculation.
Besides the fact that there are no roads from Ireland to USA, road
distances are almost always longer than the air distances due to turns
and curves, very much longer in mountainous terrain.  There can be no
formula; each road is a special case.
Okay?  Myoarin

The answer is inaccurate as the distance calculator uses the
approximation that the Earth is a perfect sphere. In fact it is oblate
with a slightly larger diameter at the equator than pole-to-pole.
A more accurate answer can be obtained by using a distance calculator
that uses the WGS-84 global mapping reference and that answer differs
by some 8km.
For details of the geometry see http://williams.best.vwh.net/ellipsoid/node1.html

Thanks for your update frehan-ga.  I don't believe my answer is
inaccurate as you state; in my answer I say the value is approximate
:)  You are of course correct in your statements regarding obtaining a
more precise answer should this be required.  Hopefully the customer
realised that the answer was an approximation as this was mentioned in
the answer and on the page where the calculation was performed.

you may be curious as to why we need the answer to this question. Well
it is for a Lucozade quiz and I am hoping to win the car !!!!!!!!!!. I
may phone their helpline and ask them where they will source their
answer. Wish me luck. Thanks for your interest.

As palitoy says, the answer is only approximate, so this doesn't really matter.  

Palitoy made a couple of mistakes.  The posted link gives the
coordinates the spire in decimal degrees (53.21N, 6.15W).  The
coordinates in the Statue of Liberty link are given in degrees and
minutes (40 41' N, 74 01' W).  This is not the same as 40.41 and 74.01
as written in the answer, because a minute is a 60th of a degree, not
a 100th.  So that was mistake number 1.  To get the answer 5124 km,
palitoy, having written the coordinates in decimal degrees, entered
them into the distance calculator in degrees and minutes.  So instead
of entering 53.21N, 6.15W, palitoy entered 53 21' N, 6 15' W, which is
wrong.  The correct coordinates (assuming the link is right) are 53
13' N, 6 9' W.  The two mistakes canceled out for the Statue of
Liberty, so palitoy actually used the correct location for that.  If
you enter the correct coordinates into the distance calculator, you
get 5134 km.

The distance calculator at the link in the answer assumes a perfect
sphere with radius 6378 km, which is the earth's equatorial radius. 
As frehan points out, the actual earth is a little smaller than this,
because it is flattened at the poles, and the true distance between
the two points is shorter by 8 or 9 km.  So palitoy might have
happened to come up with an answer that is correct within a kilometer
or two.