4 ms·
Pardon my ignorance, but what about Honolulu?
by bluesquared 7y ago
Pardon my ignorance, but what about Honolulu?
- ryanlol 7y agoLooking at the great circles Honolulu is probably fine, however there may be other issues than the location.
- mastazi 7y agoYou are right, this is the great circle route SFO-SYD http://www.gcmap.com/mapui?P=sfo-syd http://www.gcmap.com/mapui?P=sfo-syd
- bluGill 7y agoThe detour it too far. Remember the earth not flat: the shortest line is curved not straight. The most direct route typically goes too far north. A stop in Russia or China would make more sense, but even than the detour is a bit too much.
- ryanlol 7y agoI'm just a lowly PPL so I have zero practical experience with this kind of route planning, what am I missing here? https://i.succ.in/6mEsINqD.png https://i.succ.in/6mEsINqD.png I just don't see how you could reasonably stop in Russia or China while flying from the US to Sydney.
- bluGill 7y agoDifferent routes go different directions. Try flying from farther north. Also try flying to the western shore of Australia.
- ryanlol 7y agoI don't think there's much demand for direct flights to Western Australia, there's not much there. Surprisingly Qantas does fly a PER-LHR route. But yeah, I don't think there exists a NA<->AU route with practical stops in China or Russia https://i.succ.in/6myR8ZFQ.png https://i.succ.in/6myR8ZFQ.png
- mastazi 7y ago> The most direct route typically goes too far north. This only happens when departure and arrival are both in the Northern Hemisphere, if that's the case, great circle routes appear as curved towards the North when plotted on a 2D map. But here we are going from Northern to Southern hemisphere, so the great circle route will appear S-shaped, and the middle section will not be very far away from a straight line drawn on a 2D map. This is the great circle route SFO-SYD, Honolulu is pretty close as you can see http://www.gcmap.com/mapui?P=sfo-syd http://www.gcmap.com/mapui?P=sfo-syd