Where we fly (2024)

FAQs

Why don't we fly west to Australia? ›

Australia is extremely far from the nearest location in the United States. This means that an airplane will spend a longer amount of time flying over water. Hazardous weather conditions and larger weather systems can occur over bodies of water. These include thunderstorms, which are extremely hazardous to flights.

Well, technically no, Quora robot, because even a “straight” line would still curve around the globe. The shortest distance between two points on a sphere is a great circle. A great circle is any circle which equally bisects the sphere. So planes will fly on Great Circle routes around the world.

Gravity and drag (air resistance, which is friction caused by air rubbing against the plane) try to pull the plane down and slow its speed. A plane must be built so that lift and thrust are stronger than the pull of gravity and drag by just the right amount. Lift from the wings is used to overcome the force of gravity.

An airplane has specially designed wings called airfoils that move the air on the top of the wing faster than the air below the wing, creating higher pressure under the wing. Energy flows from higher to lower energy levels; the difference in pressures above and below the wing causes the upward force called lift.

The primary reason airplanes don't fly over the Pacific Ocean is because curved routes are shorter than straight routes. Flat maps are somewhat confusing because the Earth itself isn't flat.

The short answer is, no, it's not illegal to fly over Antarctica. But there are practical considerations that make it challenging for regular airlines to navigate across the land. In many parts of Antarctica, there's limited or no infrastructure, no landing strips, and obviously no refuelling stations for planes.

High Costs

The vastness of the Pacific Ocean translates to greater distances that airplanes must cover, resulting in higher fuel consumption. As fuel constitutes a significant portion of airlines' operational expenses, the cost of flying over the Pacific Ocean can be substantial.

Following its invasion of Ukraine in the spring of 2022, countries were quick to place sanctions on Russia and its airlines. The reciprocal measures by Russia closed Russian airspace to most airlines.

It's been established that the Pacific Ocean is big ... really big. And with greater distances come greater costs since the plane needs more fuel. Executive Flyers writes that while you could just charge passengers more to fly that distance, this may lead to lots of unhappy customers and airlines losing out on sales.

Providing that you can keep your propulsion system going and the thrust is greater then gravitational pull back to Earth, yes any speed will do.

What does drag do to a plane? ›

Drag is the force that pushes planes backwards and slows them down as they fly through the air. Many current innovations in flight are focused on decreasing drag on planes as much as possible. With less drag, planes are able to achieve faster speeds with the same amount of thrust as they had before.

If there were no gravity, the Earth would not remain intact, and its constituent particles, including the atmosphere and oceans, would disperse into space. The concept of Earth as a cohesive, recognizable entity relies on gravity to hold its components together.

In heavier-than-air craft, lift is created by the flow of air over an airfoil. The shape of an airfoil causes air to flow faster on top than on bottom. The fast flowing air decreases the surrounding air pressure. Because the air pressure is greater below the airfoil than above, a resulting lift force is created.

Use items you have at home: balloons, balls, a fan and a stopwatch to act out or understand the forces that act on an airplane. Four forces affect an airplane while it is flying: weight, thrust, drag and lift.

An aircraft in straight and level flight is acted upon by four forces: lift, gravity, thrust and drag. The opposing forces balance each other: Lift equals gravity, and thrust equals drag. Thrust: The force that moves an airplane forward through the air. Thrust is created by a propeller or a jet engine.

A qualified yes. Not directly west, which would be a compass heading of 270 degrees. You need to fly southwest on a heading of about 230 degrees.

It's been established that the Pacific Ocean is big ... really big. And with greater distances come greater costs since the plane needs more fuel. Executive Flyers writes that while you could just charge passengers more to fly that distance, this may lead to lots of unhappy customers and airlines losing out on sales.

When earth is round why do flights take too long to travel from US to Australia? Why not go the other way round? The reason why flights take so long to travel from the US to Australia is because of the curvature of the Earth. The shortest distance between two points on a sphere is an arc, not a straight line.

Due to the rotation of the Earth which generates the Coriolis Effect. Globally, the wind mainly blows from West to East, and this effect is even more pronounced at altitude in the Jet Stream, speeding journeys towards the East. So, in general but not always, aircraft can travel more rapidly from West to East.