Transatlantic Flight Paths

techdiver

Hi,

This is probably a stupid question, but why do transatlantic flights have to fly the routes that they currently do, i.e. down by Newfoundland etc. Why don't flight take an "as the crow flies" route? Would this not cut flight times and save fuel costs etc, or am I over simplifying it?

FlutterinBantam

Get a globe and a piece of string .

Put one end on Dublin and the other on New York.

Should answer your question.

Deacon Blues

Do an Internet search for Great Circle route.

A Great Circle is the shortest route between two points on a sphere. As FlutterinBantam says above, if you stretch a piece of string on a globe between northern Europe and the US, this will give a route up towards the artic and down the east coast of Canada. From southern Europe, the track loops down towards the Azores. The actual track flown varies slightly depending on conditions on the day, mainly the position of the jetstream, but also the ETOPS rating (if any) of the specific aircraft, which specifies how close it has to be to a diversionay airfield. When twins started doing the Atlantic routes, routes further north became common, but these are moving further south as the ETOPS envelope expands.

Thoie

The Great Circle mapper may be of some interest:

http://gc.kls2.com/cgi-bin/gc?PATH=dub-nyc&RANGE=&PATH-COLOR=&PATH-UNITS=mi&PATH-MINIMUM=&SPEED-GROUND=&SPEED-UNITS=kts&RANGE-STYLE=best&RANGE-COLOR=&MAP-STYLE=

tonyon

Have flown the Atlantic a few times and often wondered how the route is worked out. Many thanks for interesting info.

joewicklow

Here is a link to a site which expains it in great detail.

http://plus.maths.org/issue7/features/greatcircles/

highlydebased

Depends on winds and weather on the ocean usually

http://flightaware.com/live/flight/EIN133 this for example shows the EIN133 Shannon-Boston for today

LUPOR1B LUPOR UN525 DOLIP UN523 LIMRI
5200N 02000W 5200N 03000W 5200N 04000W
5200N 05000W CRONO DOTTY N162B TOPPS
SCUPP SCUPP4

Up until LIMRI is all domestic, then its co-ordanates -eg. 52 degrees north 20 west etc.

There are no commercial flights that operate "direct" between two airports IE take off from one and fly directly in a straight line to destination

Here's a good explanation that takes it beyond the simple great circle route http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Atlantic_Tracks