if the world spins at 1050 mph ...?

Question

and you leave an airport which is on the equator and is 4200 miles from your destination on the same lateral line and it takes you 4 hours to get there(flying towards the rotation), if you are looking from outer space, do you land in the same place as you started from???

Answer 1

If you could fly at 1050mph then yes you would, for the duration of your flight, remain at a fixed direction relative to an observer tracking the orbit of the earth but not following its sidereal rotation.

Ta.

Answer 2

"Flying towards the rotation" is sort ambiguous. Did you mean flying WITH the rotation, or AGAINST the rotation? Let's assume you meant "with the rotation", i.e., in the same direction the Earth is rotating.

If, as the plane took off, it was moving at exactly the same speed as the Earth was rotating AND it could somehow cancel its motion relative to the Earth's rotation, then exactly what you suggest would happen. In fact, you could land at any time -- 4 mins or 4 hours or 40 hours later -- and you would be in the same spot relative to the surface of the Earth.

The problem is that you CANNOT cancel your motion relative to the Earth's rotation. This would violate a basic law of physics (conservation of angular momentum). Thus, when you take off with the rotation of the Earth, you're basically moving at the speed of the plane + the speed of the Earth's rotation, relative to independent observer in space. Relative to the Earth, you're just moving at 1050 mph, parallel to the equator.

Answer 3

No, because the Earth also moves around the Sun, and that speed is 18.5 miles per second. After 4 hours flight, the Earth has moved more than a quarter of a million miles, that is more than 33 times its diameter.
And this is saying nothing about the motion of the complete solar system in the galaxy, or the motion of the galaxy relative to the great attractor.
So, it would look like you are no moving only if the observer was moving in the same direction and at the same speed, which is somewhat -- shall we say -- too specific?

Answer 4

When you fly north-south you need to either speed up or slow down, depending on whether you're flying towards or away from the Equator. Thw energy you have to expend is like opposing a force called the Coriolis force. By keeping the plane on track against the Coriolis force more fuel is used. Just by way of example, if you fly a plane from London, 50 degrees north, to Lagos, near the Equator, you'll need to speed the plane up by about 400 kph to keep up with the Earth's rotation. So in addition to accelerating to cruising speed, climbing to cruising height and overcoming drag during the flight, you need as much fuel as you'd use to accelerate the plane from rest to 400 kph just to prevent it from veering to the west, like airflow round isobars. If you look at old rail tracks running north-south in the northern hemisphere, you'll see the rail on the west side is more worn than the other and vice versa south of the Equator.

Answer 5

No, because your plane is subject to earth's gravity. So I suppose that the plane would be flying at (where x denotes the speed of the plane)

x+1050 mph.

Of course, don't forget that the Earth itself is travleing along its orbit, the solar system is moving through space, and the galaxy itself is moving, as well as the fact that our "local group" of galaxies is in motion. So from an absolutely stationary point of view, we are traveling very fast indeed.

Love Jack

Answer 6

NO, no no no no
your speed is the same as the earth, but you are moving respect to the planet, someone in space will be able to see you getting to a different location after 4 hours, the alteration they will see is in the speed, they will see you moving at 2100mph, the speed of rotation plus your own speed.
If you are moving at lightspeed the whole thing changes but this is not your question.

This is called relativity, for more info you can see Albert Einstein
Have a good time buddy

Answer 7

It may appear that way from outer space, but you will not land in the same place that you started from.... you will be 4200 miles away.

Answer 8

http://www.mwscomp.com/sounds/mp3/galaxy.mp3

Just remember that you're standing on a planet that's evolving
And revolving at nine hundred miles an hour,
That's orbiting at nineteen miles a second, so it's reckoned,
A sun that is the source of all our power.
The sun and you and me and all the stars that we can see
Are moving at a million miles a day
In an outer spiral arm, at forty thousand miles an hour,
Of the galaxy we call the 'Milky Way'.
Our galaxy itself contains a hundred billion stars.
It's a hundred thousand light years side to side.
It bulges in the middle, sixteen thousand light years thick,
But out by us, it's just three thousand light years wide.
We're thirty thousand light years from galactic central point.
We go 'round every two hundred million years,
And our galaxy is only one of millions of billions
In this amazing and expanding universe.
The universe itself keeps on expanding and expanding
In all of the directions it can whizz
As fast as it can go, at the speed of light, you know,
Twelve million miles a minute, and that's the fastest speed there is.
So remember, when you're feeling very small and insecure,
How amazingly unlikely is your birth,
And pray that there's intelligent life somewhere up in space,
'Cause there's bugger all down here on Earth.

Answer 9

Ignoring the movement of the earth around the sun, the plane would appear stationary while the earth moved beneath it.

Answer 10

No because the atmosphere rotates as well as the earth itself.