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Great-circle navigation or orthodromic navigation (related to orthodromic course; from Ancient Greek ορθός (orthós) 'right angle' and δρόμος (drómos) 'path') is the practice of navigating a vessel (a ship or aircraft) along a great circle.
The great-circle distance, orthodromic distance, or spherical distance is the distance between two points on a sphere, measured along the great-circle arc between them. This arc is the shortest path between the two points on the surface of the sphere. (By comparison, the shortest path passing through the sphere's interior is the chord between ...
The basic purpose of a flight planning system is to calculate how much trip fuel is needed in the air navigation process by an aircraft when flying from an origin airport to a destination airport. Aircraft must also carry some reserve fuel to allow for unforeseen circumstances, such as an inaccurate weather forecast, or air traffic control ...
A unit of distance used in aviation and maritime navigation, equal to approximately one minute of arc of latitude on a great circle. It is defined to be 1852 metres exactly, or approximately 1.15 statute mile. Route Forecast A format for reporting weather information. Zero-Fuel Weight (ZFW)
The point can be illustrated with an east–west passage over 90 degrees of longitude along the equator, for which the great circle and rhumb line distances are the same, at 10,000 kilometres (5,400 nautical miles). At 20 degrees north the great circle distance is 9,254 km (4,997 nmi) while the rhumb line distance is 9,397 km (5,074 nmi), about ...
The southernmost flight route with plausible airports would be between Buenos Aires and Perth. [40] With a 175° (S) heading, the route's great circle exceeds 85° S and would be within 500 kilometres (310 mi) of the South Pole. Currently, no commercial airline operates this 12,600-kilometre (7,800 mi; 6,800 nmi) route.
With the circumference of the Earth being approximately 40,000 km (24,855 mi), the maximum distance that can be displayed on an azimuthal equidistant projection map is half the circumference, or about 20,000 km (12,427 mi). For distances less than 10,000 km (6,214 mi) distortions are minimal.
The shortest distance between two geographical points is the great-circle distance. In the example (right), the aircraft travelling westward from North America to Japan is following a great-circle route extending northward towards the Arctic region. The apparent curve of the route is a result of distortion when plotted onto a conventional map ...