why do flights from UK to america go along the canadian coastline & not straight across?

Answer 1

the planes do not travel in an arc. they actualy go in a straight line. it just looks like they travel in an arc because the map is actualy deformed and flattend out. If you use a string on a globe the planes actualy fallow the straight short line

Answer 2

http://gc.kls2.com/


A great circle is a circle on the surface of a sphere that has the same circumference as the sphere, dividing the sphere into two equal hemispheres. Equivalently, a great circle on a sphere is a circle on the sphere's surface whose center is the same as the center of the sphere. A great circle is the intersection of a sphere with a plane going through its center. A great circle is the largest circle that can be drawn on a given sphere.

Great circles serve as the analog of "straight lines" in spherical geometry. See also spherical trigonometry and geodesic.

The great circle on the spherical surface is the path with the smallest curvature, and, hence, an arc (an orthodrome) is the shortest path between two points on the surface. The distance between any two points on a sphere is known as the great-circle distance. The great-circle route is the shortest path between two points on a sphere; however, if one were to travel along such a route, it would be difficult to manually steer as the heading would constantly be changing (except in the case of due north, south, or along the equator). Thus, Great Circle routes are often broken into a series of shorter Rhumb lines which allow the use of constant headings between waypoints along the Great Circle.

When long distance aviation or nautical routes are drawn on a flat map (for instance, the Mercator projection), they often look curved. This is because they lie on great circles. A route that would look like a straight line on the map would actually be longer.

On the Earth, the meridians are on great circles, and the equator is a great circle. Other lines of latitude are not great circles, because they are smaller than the equator; their centers are not at the center of the Earth -- they are small circles instead. Great circles on Earth are roughly 40,000 km in length, though the Earth is not a perfect sphere; for instance, the equator is 40,075 km.

Some examples of great circles on the celestial sphere include the horizon (in the astronomical sense), the celestial equator, and the ecliptic.

Great circle routes are used by ships and aircraft where currents and winds are not a significant factor. For aircraft traveling westerly between continents in the northern hemisphere these paths will extend northward near or into the arctic region, while easterly flights will often fly a more southerly track to take advantage of the jet stream.

Answer 3

They follow what's known as a great circle route. It's shorter this way, and so costs less fuel.

Find a globe, and use a piece of string to connect London to Chicago. You'll find that the string goes further north at it's middle than it does at the ends. But that's the shortest distance between the 2 cities. If you let the string sag so that it follows the same line of lattitude all the way, you'll need more string to connect the 2 cities.

Answer 4

go along the coastline means the pilot can navigate more clearly on the landmarks, whereas flying across the sea basically the pilot have nearly nothing to based on.
this was how Kennedy plane crash into the sea.

Answer 5

Because the UK is not straight across to the US. Buy a map.

Answer 6

because it's the shortest distance ( look at google maps , that will give you an idea). Maps are shown under various projections to help in seeing what's there , but the commonest Mercator projection distorts distances over big ranges ( like the atlantic).

Answer 7

The reson for this is simple, its shorter and incase of emergency stops the plane can land in canada. Imagine if you were flying over the atalantic ocean and you starting running out of fuel in the middle of the ocean? where would you emergency land?

Answer 8

becaus if they went straight across the would find contrary winds which would make tha planes spend a lot more money on time and fuel

Answer 9

Great Circle route Check it out

Answer 10

Get a world globe--take a piece of string and measure the distance.

It is shorter.