4 ms·
No, you are wrong. All of those flights, and all flights on the Moscow-Havana route, follow the great circle route because it is the shortest distance. Flights
by ackfoo 13y ago
No, you are wrong. All of those flights, and all flights on the Moscow-Havana route, follow the great circle route because it is the shortest distance. Flights that must divert for winds or turbulence or scheduling follow a modified great circle route.
Today's Aeroflot 150 does not follow a great circle route, modified or otherwise. Such a deviation has nothing to do with weather or other environmental factors and can only be explained by a need to avoid a particular airspace and the potential for diversion to an alternate airport within that airspace in case of an emergency.
You will notice that the route overflies the Azores, Bermuda and Nassau so that those airports, rather than airports in continental North America, can be used as alternates when filing the flight plan.
This is the most telling aspect of the diversion, even more so than the diversion from the great circle.
Someone important who needs to avoid the airspace over North America at all costs is on that plane.
- msandford 13y agoCompare this: http://flightaware.com/live/flight/AFL150/history/20130708/1400Z/UUEE/MUHA http://flightaware.com/live/flight/AFL150/history/20130708/1... With this: http://flightaware.com/live/flight/AFL150/history/20130707/2108Z/UUEE/MUHA http://flightaware.com/live/flight/AFL150/history/20130707/2... What you see is a substantial deviation from one to the other. One flies over land in the US quite a bit, the other only very briefly. If headwinds are bad enough on the great circle route it could actually be more efficient to take a non-great-circle route. Airplanes fly relative to the air, not the ground. So if the air is moving fast enough in the wrong direction it can lengthen the route substantially. The jetstream can be more than 100mph. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jet_stream http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jet_stream EDIT: It's also not terribly wise to state something as fact (that I am wrong) when neither of us will know either way until the media reports on it. We can both speculate, but unless we know the pilots on the airplane and they confided in us prior to the flight, we can't know. I don't know the pilots and I suspect that you don't either. So let's not dress up guesswork as facts.
- ackfoo 13y agoBoth of the examples you gave are great circle routes. Today's Af150 route is not, in any way, a modified great circle route. One correction: upon looking again at FlightAware, it is clear that the flight specifically avoided controlled airspace around the Azores, probably because Portugal has strenuously declined to allow overflights that may have certain passengers aboard. Edit: I mean you are wrong about "happens to miss", that's all. Planning air routes is not a matter of happenstance, and all of the examples you have given run counter to your argument, because they prove that Moscow-Havana flights invariably follow a great circle or a modified great circle route. If you can show me any previous AF150 that follows a flight path that resembles today's flight path, I will concede the point.
- nilkn 13y agoHere are two previous flights which are not in any way modified great circle routes: https://flightaware.com/live/flight/AFL150/history/20130620/1005Z/UUEE/MUHA https://flightaware.com/live/flight/AFL150/history/20130620/... https://flightaware.com/live/flight/AFL150/history/20130608/1005Z/UUEE/MUHA https://flightaware.com/live/flight/AFL150/history/20130608/...
- ackfoo 13y agoYes. It is extremely interesting that both of those flights started out on a more northerly route over Scandinavia and overflew Great Britain. Today's flight started out on a much mores southerly route, overflying Belrus, Poland, the Czech Republic, Germany, Luxembourg, Belgium and France, but avoiding Spain, Portugal and the Azores. Thank-you for the information. I am probably wrong. We'll see.