Great Circle Distance and Other Factors
A flight will typically take a direct route to minimise flight length. For long-haul flights, the most direct route is a great circle around the curvature of the earth. For example, aircraft travelling west between continents in the northern hemisphere will often follow paths extending northward near or into the arctic region. The resulting route, when shown on a projected map of the world, will appear curved (despite being the shortest route). The great-circle distance between airports may therefore give an approximation of flight length.
However, a flight route will also take into account weather conditions, and air currents. A transcontinental flight in an Easterly direction will often take a more southerly route to take advantage of the jet stream.
Read more about this topic: Short Haul
Famous quotes containing the words circle, distance and/or factors:
“Men go out to admire the heights of mountains, the huge waves of the sea, the broadest spans of rivers, the circle of ocean, the revolutions of stars, and leave themselves behind.”
—St. Augustine (354–430)
“A petty reason perhaps why novelists more and more try to keep a distance from journalists is that novelists are trying to write the truth and journalists are trying to write fiction.”
—Graham Greene (1904–1991)
“Language makes it possible for a child to incorporate his parents’ verbal prohibitions, to make them part of himself....We don’t speak of a conscience yet in the child who is just acquiring language, but we can see very clearly how language plays an indispensable role in the formation of conscience. In fact, the moral achievement of man, the whole complex of factors that go into the organization of conscience is very largely based upon language.”
—Selma H. Fraiberg (20th century)