Do airliners have to make adjustments in their course when flying north or south over long distances?

Question

Due to the rotation of the earth, do course corrections have to be made during a long flight north or south bound, say from Argentina to New York, or does the Earth's gravity hold an airplane in the same longitude as it travels 33,000 feet in the air?

Answer 1

Yes, it's called great circle distance.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_circle

Answer 2

As noted above, airliners do make constant small course corrections when on long flights. However, that is not because the earth is rotating below the aircraft. It is because the earth is a sphere. The math that describes this sort of thing is called analytical geometry, or spherical trigonometry.

Also, gravity does not keep an aircraft (or any kind of craft) at the same longitude. Old sailing ships used to travel along a line of lattitude before good naval chronometers were invented because there was no other way to determine their longitude.

Answer 3

All aircraft, large and small, make constant small course corrections during all trips, short or long, and in any direction. The need for these course corrections is primarily because the air through which the airplane is flying is also moving. (This is commonly called "wind," but what it means to navigation is more complex than most people realize.)

Wind corrections are much larger than any corrections that might be needed in perfectly calm air because of the shape of a great circle route.

Navigational route decisions are made primarily on the basis of information from radio navigation devices on the ground and in satellites in orbit. Pilots are still taught to navigate by magnetic compass, but that method is almost never used any more because it is difficult and not very accurate.

For the information you need, do an internet search on "air navigation." If you want to be really radical, visit the library.

Answer 4

Assuming that there is no adjustments would have to be made for wind (which is a poor assumption), the rotation of the earth does need to be taken into account. As the plane is flying, the earth is rotating and both cities are moving east due to this rotation. This is referred to as the Coriolis effect. The Coriolis effect has to be taken into account for long range artillery, so I would assume it has to be taken into account by passenger aircraft as well.

Answer 5

I believe that the direction is determined magnetically, so as long as the plane keeps heading towards the north (south) pole, it won't deviate from the longitude.

Answer 6

No they use a system of beacons and they lock on their radio compass and that takes care of most all problems. Each set of beacons are maybe 50 to 100 miles apart.