There is a flight going from Dallas Texas to Tokyo but they appear to be going all the way to Alaska before crossing and coming back down.
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The shortest path between to points on a sphere is called a great circle. You can use this tool to calculate the great circle between any two airports.
http://www.gcmap.com/mapui?P=DAL-NRT&MS=wls&DU=mi
Because the Earth is a sphere. The term you’re looking for is called a “Great Circle”.
Imagine you took a sharpie and drew a black line from Texas to Tokyo, and then took a rubber band and wrapped it around the Earth connecting both Texas and Tokyo (it would be like a weird equator). Now measure the length of the lines, the rubber band distance is much shorter than the sharpie line distance. This only works a globe though because it’s 3D geometry, it wouldn’t work on a flat map.
The shortest path between to points on a sphere is called a great circle. You can use this tool to calculate the great circle between any two airports.
http://www.gcmap.com/mapui?P=DAL-NRT&MS=wls&DU=mi
Because the Earth is a sphere. The term you’re looking for is called a “Great Circle”.
Imagine you took a sharpie and drew a black line from Texas to Tokyo, and then took a rubber band and wrapped it around the Earth connecting both Texas and Tokyo (it would be like a weird equator). Now measure the length of the lines, the rubber band distance is much shorter than the sharpie line distance. This only works a globe though because it’s 3D geometry, it wouldn’t work on a flat map.
Because the Earth is a sphere. The term you’re looking for is called a “Great Circle”.
Imagine you took a sharpie and drew a black line from Texas to Tokyo, and then took a rubber band and wrapped it around the Earth connecting both Texas and Tokyo (it would be like a weird equator). Now measure the length of the lines, the rubber band distance is much shorter than the sharpie line distance. This only works a globe though because it’s 3D geometry, it wouldn’t work on a flat map.
Perfect, yeah I looked on Apple Maps and that makes a lot more sense when you can see the globe view. On flight radar it looks extremely exaggerated like a rainbow almost
Perfect, yeah I looked on Apple Maps and that makes a lot more sense when you can see the globe view. On flight radar it looks extremely exaggerated like a rainbow almost
Perfect, yeah I looked on Apple Maps and that makes a lot more sense when you can see the globe view. On flight radar it looks extremely exaggerated like a rainbow almost
Go find a globe and a long piece of string. Place one end of the string on Dallas and hold it there. Now, pulling the string as tight as you can, lay the string over Tokyo. Keep pulling the string taught, keeping it over both Dallas and Tokyo, and you notice that the string moves itself to the shortest path between those two points. In this case, that’s a Northwesterly heading out of Dallas. You’ll see the same thing flying to Europe, where the air traffic all goes on a Northeasterly track over the North Atlantic. If you can’t find a globe, use Google Earth.
Sphere’s are funny that way. It’s hard to picture on a paper map (or on a flat screen), because they’re two-dimensional representations of the surface of a sphere, which means they’re going to be inaccurate as hell in some fashion.
Go find a globe and a long piece of string. Place one end of the string on Dallas and hold it there. Now, pulling the string as tight as you can, lay the string over Tokyo. Keep pulling the string taught, keeping it over both Dallas and Tokyo, and you notice that the string moves itself to the shortest path between those two points. In this case, that’s a Northwesterly heading out of Dallas. You’ll see the same thing flying to Europe, where the air traffic all goes on a Northeasterly track over the North Atlantic. If you can’t find a globe, use Google Earth.
Sphere’s are funny that way. It’s hard to picture on a paper map (or on a flat screen), because they’re two-dimensional representations of the surface of a sphere, which means they’re going to be inaccurate as hell in some fashion.
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