Posted on 09/25/2015 6:08:58 AM PDT by C19fan
Now this is what we call a long-haul flight. Air India has recently proposed a new flight route linking the IT hotspots of Bengaluru and San Francisco, located a staggering 8,699 miles (14,000km) apart. If approved, this particular path would be the world's longest non-stop commercial route with an estimated flight time of between 17 to 18 hours.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
Sleep well all you IT workers in San Fran and Sackatomatoes. Now instead of having 2 days to clear out your cubicles, you’ll have 18 hours.
Shouldn’t IT types be using i’net video conferencing?
Yeah but think of what it would do for your frequent flier miles!
/sarc
Eighteen hours in a coach seat? They’ll need to pry people out of them.
Looking at the proposed route as shown on the map in the article, wouldn’t it be shorter to fly east, across the Pacific, instead of the other direction?
Do you think they don’t know the shortest way?
“Looking at the proposed route as shown on the map in the article, wouldn’t it be shorter to fly east, across the Pacific, instead of the other direction?”
Just off the top of my head, 24,000 miles (roughly the circumference of the earth) minus 8,700 miles leaves 15,300 for the distance going the other way.
Let me check Google Earth.
(Also, long over-water routes have different rules for type of aircraft, divert distances, etc.)
BTW, that 8,700 miles is measured over the Pole, flying north from India, over Nepal, China, Mongolia, Russia and Alaska.
Flying “the other way around, over the Pacific”, via Hawaii is 10,566 miles.
Ignoring those as a first cut though, the most direct route would be NNE out of Bengaluru, over Inda, western China, bisecting Afghanistan south to north, and across eastern Siberia, down over Alaska, western Canada...
Why they would route the other way? Maybe prevailing winds. Maybe to avoid the airspace over some of those countries. Maybe because of a dearth of abort/divert airfields along that route...
I once flew non stop from Chicago to Korea...around 15 hours. I forget the airline, but we got only one meal and one snack. I was in the middle seat, with an incontinent Korean at the window, making constant trips to the bathroom.
And in the poor decision making department...on the flight back I was hung over...or more precisely I boarded drunk and went through the hangover on the plane.
I’m speculating, but Afghanistan and inland China are probably no better than the ocean, as far as emergency landing is concerned.
Presuming this flight has a return flight, I don’t think prevailing winds are that much of a concern.
I wonder if flights in and out of India have to avoid Pakistan.
The science dumb generation... Figures.
The circumference of the earth is roughly 24,000 miles. All the shortest routes must be along a line that long. No shorter.
24000-8700 = 15,300. Not quite shorter.
I appreciate the explanation, but there’s no need to be snotty about it.
Anybody thinking of taking this flight needs to google: blood clots, pulmonary embolism and long flights.
JFK-JNB is 7969 miles, I’ve done it and it’s VERY long.
Gratuitous insult - the key to any explanation.
Bengaluru is located at 78E longitude, San Francisco at 122W.
Accordingly, flying west from Bengaluru over the Atlantic to San Francisco covers 200 degrees of longitude.
But flying east from Bengaluru over the Pacific to San Francisco covers only 160 degrees of longitude. Clearly, that's a shorter route -- but it's still 8,699 miles.
Thus, whoever drew the map made an incorrect assumption about the routing.
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