I was on a flight looking down at the cars on the highway and it hit me, like the higher you go the higher the radius is to cover the same distance as ground transportation. I’m sure there’s a cool reason and history. To make up for the extra fuel to get up that high and the extra miles added. Anyone? Does it have to do with less air pressure. And the efficiency aerodynamic wise? Or noise pollution? Visual pollution? I just always took it as a non ask, “We’re this high, cuz we’re in a plane. Duh”
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Airplanes fly at approximately 10000 meters, so the increase in circumference is 0.15% as compared to ground level. In other words, a 1000km trip on the ground (in a straight line, which is even less likely on the ground) is a 1001.5km trip by aircraft.
The reason aircraft fly at higher altitudes has to do with the engine and wing efficiency, as well as weather avoidance and exploiting phenomena like the jetstream.
It gets very technical if you want the details and that’s not really ELI5 material.
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