London to New York - why head to Scotland?

Question

I think the answer is the curvature of the earth but I'd love more detail (esp from pilots etc)

Lockerbie crashed over Scotland when heading to New York. And when I flew to NY we came in over Labrador coast etc.

Am I getting confused looking at the Mercator (flattened) world map?- I think so

Give me the science!

Answer 1

Get a globe and get a piece of string. Place one end of the string on NY and then find the route that will get you the shortest length of string to London.
This is the route an aircraft will try to fly, but there are other considerations as well such as weather, jetstream and the location of general airways, navaids, diversions airports even the type of Aircraft etc.
You will find that the route will look a lot different to what you might expect if you are just looking at a mercator map which distorts everything.

Answer 2

So far it doesnt seem like anyone has really hit the point of the question so I guess I'll try... the Earth is obviously round, so it goes along the princiapal that if you were at the north pole, you could "circle the earth" in a few seconds since its a infinatly small point. When flying, the same thing holds true... if it is more efficient to waste fuel getting north toward the pole than it is to shoot right across that is what they will do... many times, the west to east route from aisa to america is quicker to ride the jet stream and they wont follow the great circle route as it is called... but from east to west they almost always use the great circle... reason you dont see it used in the continental US is distance of flight and dense traffic. In recap... look at a normal ball and think of drawing lines on it from top to bottom like the Latitude and Longitude lines on the earth... if your trying to get around the earth, the equator is the longest line and the pole is the shortest, if you were looking at the very north pole of the earth and you moved one inch in either direction, at the equator you would have moved a couple hundred miles... thats why they do it... I dont think there is really any science behind it besides distance due to the earth being a sphere.

Answer 3

Flying, in the commercial or business sense, is all about saving time, therefore the shortest distance between point A and point B. The Great Circle method of computation is used for that reason. It is actually a shorter distance to fly the Greenland, Iceland, Scotland route than to fly what appears on a flat map to be the shortest distance, i.e., across the ocean.

Answer 4

I was wondering the same thing a few year ago when i went to china. The trip was to Hong Kong via alaska. I was wondering if the plane can fly across the pacific ocean to make the trip easier. Then i did a little reasearch about it and i found out that fly across an ocean is very dangerous or can be dangerous. You never know what can go wrong during a flight. You could have:
>someone very sick
>someone who needs emergency medical help
>Loss of pressure
>loss of fuel
>something could go wrong with the planes system
>an engine faliure

These are somethings that make a pilot plan a route. It is always better to be safe than to be faster!!

Answer 5

Flight routes are set up to maintain as much time as possible within a reasonable distance to a suitable landing site. Thus, for the North Atlantic routes, they arc across Scotland, Ireland, Iceland, Greenland, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland. Luck of it is, the curvature of the globe benefits this routing, but is not the primary reason for it.

Answer 6

Gosh, that's confusing. Same thing happened to me two weeks ago. We flew from Newark International (New Jersey) to Dublin, Ireland, but we seemed to be going north first, and passed Boston and Vermont. Maybe it's because the British Isles are actually further north than we think? I don't know.

Answer 7

Air lines don't like to fly long distances over water. If anything goes wrong they would prefer to be over land, where an emergency landing at least might be possible.

So when flying to or from Europe, the route is along the American and Canadian coast as long as possible, then up near Greenland, and over a UK coast (Ireland and/or Scotland) as soon as possible.

Stay at or near land as much as possible - not the shortest route, but the safest.

Answer 8

because there are one of those number of dignitaries who've to be invited and there'll be huge crowds milling the streets. the conventional venue is Westminster Abbey, although the Prince of Wales married in St Paul's Cathedral because it replaced into larger and larger travellers might want to be accommodated. The British love custom and that is what a royal wedding ceremony is all about.

Answer 9

i flew the exact same route a few months ago. i was wondering if the planes that fly this route aren't certified to do long distance flights over water. i remember i flew in a two engine airbus from vancouver to osaka japan and wondered why we were over water so long...

Answer 10

Split_ess has the best answer so far. Distance from land is only relevant to ETOPS (twin engined) aircraft, but the time allowed from land is so large now as to be of no real consequence on Atlantic flights.