While there is obviously a lot of military restricted airspace around Nellis, China Lake, and Irwin, the planned route takes the flight 100s of miles further south than necessary.
They are following charted airway routes designated by the FAA. These routes exist to help manage air traffic, ensure accurate navigation, and avoid collisions. Few if any direct routes exist between airports.
Yes, that too. It’d be much more convenient if we could drive in a straight line to our destination, but roads were built for a reason! Air traffic is no different.
Yes No, this is not a great circle route. I missed the fact it’s north of the equator. Like others have said, this is likely due to ATC traffic routing, land, and politics.
If you do a search for “map of united states latitudes” you can see that the latitudes across the US are curved in this exact orientation.
There might be further reasons that it’s not a direct A to B, like wind patterns or weather etc, but it’s mostly just that lines of latitude (which are straight east/west lines) are not perfectly straight lines on most map projections.
I never said the shortest route. a plane flying “in a straight line west to east” would show up as as a curve on the map was all I was trying to convey. It’s possible this plane’s bearing doesn’t drastically change throughout this flight. “Straight lines” get real messy when you convert a sphere into a 2d projection for maps.
Then a further addition that there are other reasons to not fly in a direct straight line anyway. “Shortest route direct A to B” is an ideal condition, and the world is an always an ideal place.
“shortest route” and “straight line” actually mean pretty much the same thing. The shortest route is the straight line. Sorry if I confused the matter by switching up the terminology.
Flying parallel to the lines of latitude would mean that your bearing doesn’t change much, sure, but flying in a straight line would require your heading to change continuously.
The aircraft in the screenshot was flying a very not-straight course
No, it’s not. It’s noth of the equator, so the straight line route would look like a curve towards the north. This route is curved south, which means it’s actually because of air traffic control routing them along approved flight paths. That might be for traffic management reasons, or because of terrain on the route, or restricted airspace.
While I have no reason to suspect you’re wrong, the idiot in the original image is almost certainly trying to imply a flat Earth. Your clarification would not be well-received by someone like them.
@andrewrgross
Out of curiosity, why *is* it not flying in a straight line? Curvature of the Earth or something?
There are mountains and multiple no-fly zones along the direct path. They’re avoiding those.
While there is obviously a lot of military restricted airspace around Nellis, China Lake, and Irwin, the planned route takes the flight 100s of miles further south than necessary.
They are following charted airway routes designated by the FAA. These routes exist to help manage air traffic, ensure accurate navigation, and avoid collisions. Few if any direct routes exist between airports.
Yes, that too. It’d be much more convenient if we could drive in a straight line to our destination, but roads were built for a reason! Air traffic is no different.
could be also due to more favourable winds in that route respect to the direct one
YesNo, this is not a great circle route. I missed the fact it’s north of the equator. Like others have said, this is likely due to ATC traffic routing, land, and politics.deleted by creator
If you do a search for “map of united states latitudes” you can see that the latitudes across the US are curved in this exact orientation.
There might be further reasons that it’s not a direct A to B, like wind patterns or weather etc, but it’s mostly just that lines of latitude (which are straight east/west lines) are not perfectly straight lines on most map projections.
That’s misleading. The shortest route would be the “great circular” joining the two points, which lines of latitude definitely are not.
The only line of latitude which is a great circle is the equator.
I never said the shortest route. a plane flying “in a straight line west to east” would show up as as a curve on the map was all I was trying to convey. It’s possible this plane’s bearing doesn’t drastically change throughout this flight. “Straight lines” get real messy when you convert a sphere into a 2d projection for maps.
Then a further addition that there are other reasons to not fly in a direct straight line anyway. “Shortest route direct A to B” is an ideal condition, and the world is an always an ideal place.
“shortest route” and “straight line” actually mean pretty much the same thing. The shortest route is the straight line. Sorry if I confused the matter by switching up the terminology.
Flying parallel to the lines of latitude would mean that your bearing doesn’t change much, sure, but flying in a straight line would require your heading to change continuously.
The aircraft in the screenshot was flying a very not-straight course
It is flying in a straight line, but is doing so around the edge of a sphere. The map is distorted to project the sphere onto a flat image.
No, it’s not. It’s noth of the equator, so the straight line route would look like a curve towards the north. This route is curved south, which means it’s actually because of air traffic control routing them along approved flight paths. That might be for traffic management reasons, or because of terrain on the route, or restricted airspace.
While I have no reason to suspect you’re wrong, the idiot in the original image is almost certainly trying to imply a flat Earth. Your clarification would not be well-received by someone like them.
Pearls before swine and all that.
And to add, planes have been flying like this for decades, and curvature of the earth is part of calculating important things like fuel requirements.