When I took a flight between new york and paris why is the flight going in a northward curve?
Why are they heading so northward so as to reach greenland and then heading south to reach paris? Are trans atlantic flight paths always that way. Is there any navigational advantage?
Aircraft - 7 Answers
Random Answers, Critics, Comments, Opinions :
1 :
It is simply shorter flying across the north pole. Other reasons why are the following: 1) The earth is not a perfect ball but an ellipsoid. It is flatter on the poles, thus the way across the poles can be shorter than across the equator. 2) It is not very economical to fly against the wind so airlines try to avoid the jetstreams. 3) Airplanes have fixed routes. To the uninitiated it might look like there are no rules in the sky. However there are several "highways" the planes have to follow when they fly. It is a matter of safety. One of these highways (perhaps the busiest) goes northeast from New York to Greenland and then Europe.
2 :
shortest way along the 3D orb is not the shortest way shown at the map. the shortest way from A to B on the surface of the orb is the "great circle" linking the two points. to the extreme, think of travelling from US to Russia. the shortest way goes over the north pole, not east or westwards.
3 :
The flight looks curved on a flat map, but on the Earth, which is a globe, it's actually a straight line, the shortest path between New York and Paris. The northward curve is an illusion created by projecting a round object like the Earth onto a flat map. In general, with most maps, the closer to the poles a particular flight passes, the more curved its path will appear to be on a flat map. Trips along the Equator are straight lines. In every case, though, all of these routes are actually straight lines on the surface of a sphere like the Earth.
4 :
As Techwing (above) says. And you can see the effect if you take a soccer ball or basket ball, draw a line round it and imagine it to be the equator. Now pull a piece of string round it between two points each about half way between the 'equator' and one of the poles. As you tighten the string you'll see it arc towards the nearest pole proving it's the shortest route. It's called a 'great circle' track.
5 :
Get a globe and a piece of string. Start at NY and stretch the string straight to Paris. You will notice that the route matches almost exactly to the way it is shown on a flat map.
6 :
It has nothing to do with any kind of magic relating to the north pole or a bunnyrabbit's tail. Long-distance flights follow a line called a "great circle" route or "Rhumb line" across the earth's surface. Europe is actually rather far to the north of the US mid-atlantic. The latitude of Paris is 48 degrees 48 minutes North, whereas NYC is 40 degrees 74 minutes North. So even if the earth was flat, you would go somewhat northward to get from NYC to Paris. But the Great Circle route starts at an even steeper northward angle. To visualize the Great Circle route, get some string and a globe. Have someone hold the globe for you if necessary so as to make the two cities convenient to reach. Now stretch the string tightly from NYC to Paris. Note the angle at which the string crosses the lines of latitude and longitude near the takeoff point. You will see that it is quite an angle toward the north. Then as you go along, it "levels out" and actually goes southeast as you near Paris.
7 :
The world is round. Look on a globe at the route.
