How would you specify direction at the South Pole?

Question

How do scientists living at the South Pole specify direction? At the south pole, every direction is north. East, west, south have no meaning. So how would they indicate the direction on the horizon that a plane is expected to be coming from?

Answer 1

http://antarctica.kulgun.net/
:

Answer 2

If a plane takes off at the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station for Punta Arenas, Chile, it'll fly in a north-west direction. To Cape Town, South Africa, it'll be heading "north only". To New Zealand, it flies a northeastern course. And this is just because of the way our world map is set up.
Punta Arenas in Chile is on the continent of America which is located in the Western Hemisphere.
Cape Town in South Africa is on the African continent, which is split by the 0-Meridian of Greenwich into the Eastern and Western Hemispheres. Therefore you'll be going almost "straight" north if you're coming from the South Pole.
New Zealand is part of Australia and Oceania, which belongs to the Eastern Hemisphere.
Of course, if you are at the South Pole, there isn't any other direction BUT north. Still, since the man-made split between Eastern and Western Hemisphere virtually exists, you'll be going north, but that depends on toward WHAT north you are going.
And, yes, strange, but true: If you take off from any of the places I've mentioned above; (even from ANY part of the WORLD, no matter whether it's out of the Eastern OR Western Hemisphere) toward the South Pole, you'll be going SOUTH, nothing else!!!
Weird, isn't it?

Answer 3

There is no way to know a direction with a magnetic compass in the south pole neither in the north pole, the only way to know is with maps, GPS, and the airplanes use there own navigation systems like GPS, Inertial systems, and equipment used on ground, but the pole is big ,it only right and close to the magnetic pole where the mag compass is not going to show you any direction, also is not going to show you where is the North is you are in the south pole because how the magnetic field pass through the magnetic compass.
Cheers

Answer 4

There is only one direction at the South Pole - North

Answer 5

They use a grid system, it's a rectangular grid with 'grid north' defined in one certain direction. The planes take off from the skiway headed about 'grid north'.

I think that grid north is in the direction of 0 degrees longitude. Then grid south would be 180 degrees. East is +90, and west is -90.

Answer 6

Horizon being North the plane would be coming south if you turned left they would be traveling south east or east if you turned right it would be traveling south west or west if your horizon was facing south it would travel north

Answer 7

North.

Answer 8

north, east, south, west

this is because the geographic pole is not the same location as the magnetic poles

Answer 9

Hmmmm... Let's wait and cross that bridge when we get to it. Perhaps someday when I wake up, stretching, yawning & scratching, and open the front door to see my paper floating down the street, I will begin to ponder such questions. And perhaps abit later, as I am squatting there on that moving iceberg with half a dozen other puzzled folks, I will have wished that I had watched that Al Gore movie....

Answer 10

first of all poles are man made... there is no such thing as a bottom of the earth... also the magnetic pole is not at the same location as the south pole we know.....

Answer 11

Most of the bases at Antarctica are not at the pole itself, so the compass does work