Why don't they fly straight there?
Discussion
If that's a flight from the UK, you will find that due to the curvature of the Earth, the shortest route is up over Scotland, Iceland, Greenland and down over Canada.
Straightlining it over the Atlantic would acutally be the longer distance.
Straightlining it over the Atlantic would acutally be the longer distance.
Edited by Mandat on Tuesday 25th October 17:31
That aircraft IS flying straight.
For air traffic management purposes, aircraft have to be routed along air corridors. These are as straight as possible but as the aircraft near their destinations or navigation waypoints, the routes do have to deviate from a straight line - depending on where the aircraft is headed and what types of clearances the controllers want to maintain.
For air traffic management purposes, aircraft have to be routed along air corridors. These are as straight as possible but as the aircraft near their destinations or navigation waypoints, the routes do have to deviate from a straight line - depending on where the aircraft is headed and what types of clearances the controllers want to maintain.
Ari said:
Sorry, didn't explain it very well. From where they are in the image to where they're landing the route looks like it doglegs slightly one way then the other as though to keep it over the land. Wondered why they needed to do that instead of going in a straight line.
See my post. Airspace is very busy - especially in and around major cities and airports so aircraft have to be routed around each other by air traffic contol to avoid conflict.As Eric Mc has said there are sometimes fixed points that they all go to to get ready for lining up with the runways. Likewise on departure they will mostly go set routes in the sky until it joins up with their actual route to go to destination. Standard Instrument Departure (SID) and Standard Terminal Arrival Route (STAR). I am only guessing here but La Guardia airport also probably affects how that aircraft gets into JFK so it can't come in from the North, and has to come in from the East. Sometimes there are also blocks of airspace reserved for the military that they have to go around.
It's a little known secret that London to JFK is just 1 hour 20 minutes away by 747 but they take the long route so they can charge you a lot more. This is very much the same tactic used by a dodgy NYC taxi driver to raise the fare.
Ryan Air figured this out and was going to offer flights to NY for just £1.99 (plus baggage £39.99, seat belt £9.99, sandwich £14.99, toilet fee £3.99 etc) but they wouldn't grant them a licence.
If you want proof, keep looking out the window for the whole trip and count how many times you pass the o2, they circle it at least twice to add time.
The above is all lies
Ryan Air figured this out and was going to offer flights to NY for just £1.99 (plus baggage £39.99, seat belt £9.99, sandwich £14.99, toilet fee £3.99 etc) but they wouldn't grant them a licence.
If you want proof, keep looking out the window for the whole trip and count how many times you pass the o2, they circle it at least twice to add time.
The above is all lies
This is the "great circle" route http://www.gcmap.com/mapui?P=JFK-EGKK
It makes life much easier for pilots and traffic controllers if they can travel down "corridors", which consist of direct routes from beacon to beacon. Before the plane takes off, the pilot will file a flight plan which will look something like:
Route KLAS./.BFF DLH.J533.YQT.J481.YMO MEMSO YKL HO PORGY 5700N/05000W 5600N/04000W 5600N/03000W 5600N/02000W RESNO NETKI NORLA.UM140.MERLY.UL149.DIDEL.UN514.GIBSO EGKK/0918
This is basically a list of beacons and lat/long the plane will fly between on it's route. In this case Las Vegas to Luton.
It makes life much easier for pilots and traffic controllers if they can travel down "corridors", which consist of direct routes from beacon to beacon. Before the plane takes off, the pilot will file a flight plan which will look something like:
Route KLAS./.BFF DLH.J533.YQT.J481.YMO MEMSO YKL HO PORGY 5700N/05000W 5600N/04000W 5600N/03000W 5600N/02000W RESNO NETKI NORLA.UM140.MERLY.UL149.DIDEL.UN514.GIBSO EGKK/0918
This is basically a list of beacons and lat/long the plane will fly between on it's route. In this case Las Vegas to Luton.
Deva Link said:
That route also minimises the distance from land, compared to just flying straight across.
True, on this particular route, but nowadays, modern wide body jets are allowed to be up to 3-3.5 hours from the nearest suitable airport, which pretty much minimizes the need to hug land when transatlantic-you've got potentially 7 hours of point to point over water flying without needing to adjust course for that purpose.South Pacific, however...
Zad said:
This is the "great circle" route http://www.gcmap.com/mapui?P=JFK-EGKK
It makes life much easier for pilots and traffic controllers if they can travel down "corridors", which consist of direct routes from beacon to beacon. Before the plane takes off, the pilot will file a flight plan which will look something like:
Route KLAS./.BFF DLH.J533.YQT.J481.YMO MEMSO YKL HO PORGY 5700N/05000W 5600N/04000W 5600N/03000W 5600N/02000W RESNO NETKI NORLA.UM140.MERLY.UL149.DIDEL.UN514.GIBSO EGKK/0918
This is basically a list of beacons and lat/long the plane will fly between on it's route. In this case Las Vegas to Luton.
Las Vegas to London Gatwick.It makes life much easier for pilots and traffic controllers if they can travel down "corridors", which consist of direct routes from beacon to beacon. Before the plane takes off, the pilot will file a flight plan which will look something like:
Route KLAS./.BFF DLH.J533.YQT.J481.YMO MEMSO YKL HO PORGY 5700N/05000W 5600N/04000W 5600N/03000W 5600N/02000W RESNO NETKI NORLA.UM140.MERLY.UL149.DIDEL.UN514.GIBSO EGKK/0918
This is basically a list of beacons and lat/long the plane will fly between on it's route. In this case Las Vegas to Luton.
ETOPS said:
True, on this particular route, but nowadays, modern wide body jets are allowed to be up to 3-3.5 hours from the nearest suitable airport, which pretty much minimizes the need to hug land when transatlantic-you've got potentially 7 hours of point to point over water flying without needing to adjust course for that purpose.
South Pacific, however...
Interesting you mention the south pacific, LA to auckland is pretty much over water the whole way, and it's a long way! Are allowances made for this case, or are there little atols out there that can handle a laden 747 in case of emergency?South Pacific, however...
Super Slo Mo said:
Interesting you mention the south pacific, LA to auckland is pretty much over water the whole way, and it's a long way! Are allowances made for this case, or are there little atols out there that can handle a laden 747 in case of emergency?
You might find this interesting - although it's from 2003 and the ETOPS rules have been extended since then, and they also apply to all aircraft now, not just twins: http://www.boeing.com/commercial/airports/faqs/eto...Super Slo Mo said:
Interesting you mention the south pacific, LA to auckland is pretty much over water the whole way, and it's a long way! Are allowances made for this case, or are there little atols out there that can handle a laden 747 in case of emergency?
There are a few Jumbos B747-400s that fly around down near the South Pole. I don't think they are affected by ETOPS yet, not the ones I see anyway. They regularly get up to 2500nm from the nearest suitable airport. Another one flies over to Buenos Aires out of Sydney and heads off way south of New Zealand.
I thought I had put this up before but we used to have a B777 that had to go high into the Indian Ocean to get to South Africa because of ETOPS. It would take it 2 hours longer to get there than the Jumbo that could go direct, or a better route to avoid the headwinds.
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