Why do transatlantic flights veer north over greenland?
The earth flattens out as you get further further north, also the air is thinner. Firstly because the earth is flatter it reduces distance, and the air is thinner reduces drag – so the airplane can either fly faster or use less fuel or a mix of both. As well as this, twin engined aircraft have to be within a certain distance of a runway at anytime during their flight (ETOPS) – so this affects the routing a lot. 4 engined aircraft will tend to fly the most direct route as they are ETOPS immune – also having the quickest journey times.
THE DIRECT AND SHORTEST PATH BETWEEN LONDON/EUROPEAN COUNTRIES TOWARDS CANADA/NEW YORK/USA IS FLOODED WITH AIRCRAFTS IN LARGE NUMBERS AT A GIVEN POINT OF TIME. AS SUCH ADDITIONAL AIRCRAFTS CANNOT BE PERMITTED TO AVOID COLLUSION.THEREFORE ALL THE ADDITIONAL AIRCRAFTS ARE DIVERTED TO FLY ACROSS GREENLAND.
Because the map they display is a flat rectangle. If you tried wrapping a piece of paper shaped like a rectangle around a sphere it wouldn’t fit right. Due to the stretched and distorted map, it appears that the line curves, when in reality, its the most direct route on a sphere/egg shape(earth). That’s what I concluded when taking one of them trans-Atlantic flights that I take a few times a year ;).
