A question about flying.......?

Question

I live in the Eastern Time Zone. It's 11:28pm here right now. If I flew in a plane going west, would I ever catch daylight?

Answer 1

Yes if you were flying fast enough long enough. New York to Honolulu is 4,970 Miles. At 11:28 PM EST it is 5 hours earlier in Honolulu or 6:28 PM there. Astronomical twilight begins at 5:53 AM, ends at 7:36 PM in Honolulu, so you would have about an hour to get there and catch daylight. You would have to travel at about 5,000 MPH leaving at the time you specified. If you left earlier in the evening in New York, it would be much easier to catch the daylight.

Astronomical twilight ends at 6:44 PM EST in New York which is 1:44 PM in Honolulu; approximately 6 hours later it is dark in Honolulu, so daylight on the surface of the earth is traveling about 5000 miles in 6 hours or 833 miles an hour. Most commercial jets fly at about 500-550 MPH.

To make daylight on earth subject to your whimsy you will need a very fast plane or better yet fly east, you will "catch" it quicker.

Answer 2

The responder before me has the right thinking. Basically, it depends on your alititude. The higher you are the more likely that you would see it.

In terms of just "catching" daylight, as in catching up with the timezones, then no, a regular plane would not travel quickly enough.

So, you could be high enough to get daylight, but if you landed in that very instant, you would be even more timezones behind the sun than you had been before your plane departed. You will not "catch the timezones" but can see "daylight" by going up high enough.

Answer 3

Sure. The sun would already have set on the West coast even before you took off but you would see it over the Pacific if you kept going.

Also, your altitude in a plane will help you see the sun sooner as well.

Less curvature of the Earth to see around.

Answer 4

No, Planes are not fast enough to keep up with the earth's rotation.