jis
Permanent Way Inspector
Staff member
Administator
Moderator
AU Supporting Member
Gathering Team Member
-
Well actually Anderson said:
Edit 2: I think LAX-SYD/BNE only really ends up being long enough because it also crosses the equator (whereas a lot of the Europe-US routes end up being polar-ish).
OTOH, flights from Asia are a different matter, specially the westbounds. They tend to go far north of the Arctic Circle to avoid the jet stream entirely. Eastbound, depending on where they are going they tend to take the grat circle route, unless the jet stream is blowing strong, in which they take a longer southerly route to take advantage of the jet stream.
For example, on the EWR - SIN flight, depending on the state of the winds, I have flown it across the North Pole, over Siberia and once over Caspian Sea, the Stans and India. The latter was really goofy since my destination was Kolkata. We basically flew over Kolkata to Singapore and then I backtracked later in the day to Kolkata. OTOH, westbound flights even from Delhi or Mumbai, often head straight north after avoiding the Himalayas by flying over Afghanistan. They often go all the way north to the Arctic Ocean near Murmansk or a little east of there, and then essentially do the "Atlantic Crossing" over the Arctic Ocean to northern Greenland. How far north they will go depends on the shape and strength of the jet stream.