to +ing?

Check landing here:

http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary

It's both a noun and an -ing form (gerund).

To is a preposition in your example and all prepositions take a gerund. With regard to aviation, 2 hours to land doesn't make sense. 2 hours to landing means the airplane will come down on to the runway in 2 hours' time.

Cheers
CB

Thanks,

You wrote:

2 hours to land doesn't make sense.

Do you really think that? How about 2 hours to land means take 2 hours to land?

Quoc

2 hours to land is not a sentence and I can think of no situation a person would use this expression in in aviation. An air controller might say: "Two planes to land in five minutes." That would mean he expects two airplanes to land or two airplanes are scheduled or estimated to land in the next five minutes. However, hours don't land and that's why I can think of no use for 2 ho

You could say it will take us two hours to land. That would mean that the process of landing will take two hours - so although it is grammatical it is not realistic.

It will take us two minutes to land is more likely. But bear in mind that this refers to the time spent doing the actual landing. IT does not mean that in two minutes time we will land.

There must be some aspect of being idiomatic though:

It's two hours until take-off (not taking-off) but

It's two hours until landing...

Any thought on this?

Hi,

Insteading of saying It will take us two minutes to land, can I only say two minutes to land without changing the meaning? If not, why?

Quoc

Tung QuocYou wrote:
2 hours to land doesn't make sense.

Do you really think that? How about 2 hours to land means take 2 hours to land?

It makes sense only if you mean that the plane would fly around the airport for two hours (which can ha

Tung QuocInsteading of saying It will take us two minutes to land, can I only say two minutes to land without changing the meaning? If not, why? <>

Too short and unclear.

Great

I understand now.

Thanks

Quoc