Questions tagged [flight-path]

The trajectory through the air; for the route use [routing]

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Flying upside down without feeling it

A friend of mine told me that several years ago she flew on a two-seats general aviation aircraft. She does not remember the exact model, but she remembers well that the pilot flew upside down for a ...
Mark's user avatar
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2 answers
131 views

Identifying the behavior of these two planes

I have no aviation knowledge/experience but I observed something on a flight tracking app I was curious about: Early morning (7 AM) I watched two small planes (one of them was a piper archer) ...
Oliver G's user avatar
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3 votes
4 answers
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Why is Cathay Pacific flight path so long? [duplicate]

I was looking at flightradar24 and found this: Which shows a flight from Vancouver, Canada to Hong Kong by Qatar Executive. On the other hand I found this: A flight from New York to Hong Kong by ...
Snack Exchange's user avatar
35 votes
1 answer
5k views

Why would a plane fly in circles for 6-7 hours and then land? [duplicate]

I've seen similar questions asked but when I look at the flight path this seems quite different: https://www.flightradar24.com/data/aircraft/f-gjfa I'm trying to figure out why that kind of plane ...
CuriousGeorge's user avatar
4 votes
0 answers
193 views

Why did this flight descend way below usual path?

I flew on UAL2086 last night which is a regularly scheduled flight from KIAH to KLAS, this particular plane was a 737-900 - N79402. We took off early and had no issues until we arrived in Arizona when ...
Paul's user avatar
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4 votes
1 answer
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Does an orbital trajectory reduce my required lift for high mach numbers?

when an aircraft is flying from let us say Paris to New York on a fixed altitude it is not flying on a straight line but on an orbital / circular trajectory around the earth. Assuming, the aircraft is ...
Lucas's user avatar
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3 votes
1 answer
175 views

Why are these flights not using a more direct route?

Why are the three flights (see image below) not using either Nepali or Bangladeshi airspace? The five "freedoms of the air" should have allowed them to follow a more straighter path, ...
Regmi's user avatar
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6 votes
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How are air routes created?

How are air routes created? Does it need ‘approval’ from another country? Nepal seems to have built several new international airports without air routes (or having to use the old one to TIA) and it’s ...
Regmi's user avatar
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Why was this slightly unusual flight path followed?

I was just browsing the flight paths when I saw this: (FlightRadar24: SN2825 from BRU to BUD on 26 Jul 2022) But normally the path is straighter like this (not flying over Zurich): (FlightRadar24: ...
Akos's user avatar
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-5 votes
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Why didn't LO7898 fly near the North Pole?

I've seen LO7898's route from Seoul to Warsaw on flightradar24. Instead of flying the shortest route (over Mongolia, Russia and near the North Pole) it flew as if Earth was a cylinder: over China, ...
Hidden User's user avatar
4 votes
1 answer
393 views

Why did LH412 fly in circles, far from its destination?

On 5 June 2022 Lufthansa flight 412 from Munich to Newark flew 3 clockwise circles over the sea just west of Brittany: (FlightAware.com) Why did it fly these circles? It was many hours away from the ...
Diana M.'s user avatar
-1 votes
2 answers
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How can I do transatlantic flights with a Pilatus PC-24? [closed]

I'm interested in this plane, but the aircraft's advertised range is 1,800nm with 6 passengers onboard. How do you fly from e.g. Paris to New York?
julien_c's user avatar
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3 answers
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Why don't most planes fly in a straight path? [duplicate]

Take a look at these images: As you can see, in all the images, the flight paths are curved. As far as I know, the shortest path between two points is a straight line. Planes usually would take the ...
Ishaan Manish's user avatar
2 votes
1 answer
242 views

Is this a normal flight path to take?

A few days ago I was flying from Munich to Chicago, the flight arrived about 20-25 minutes late, at some point, the pilot suddenly turned in completely the opposite direction as we were approaching ...
Essam's user avatar
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50 votes
2 answers
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Why do airliners hug the coast on flights?

In reviewing the route a commercial aircraft is taking from Boston to Miami, I see the following: As you can see, it does not follow the great circle path and in fact deviates significantly from it, ...
Tyler Durden's user avatar
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24 votes
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Why don't flights fly towards their landing approach path sooner?

For example shown here, the flight is heading to the centre of the airport, until it gets close when it then moves into it's landing path. This is an inefficient use of time, fuel and emmissions, why ...
AndrewHarvey's user avatar
4 votes
1 answer
640 views

Did the X-15 ever conduct a point-to-point flight?

The North American X-15 rocketplane flew at up to Mach 7 and at very high altitudes, it was also capable of spaceflight but these were quite steep parabolic patterns. At Mach 7 it flew leveled and my ...
Giovanni's user avatar
-2 votes
1 answer
256 views

What is this aircraft doing?

I spotted this aircraft on FlightRadar24 flying a strange route. What is it doing?
TBH's user avatar
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89 votes
1 answer
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What is this plane flying in overlapping circles pattern doing?

I have seen this Beechcraft Super King Air coming from France near Valenciennes and flying in circular patterns over a zone of Belgium for 2 days in a row now. What is it doing, some kind of aerial ...
DistractedAvFan's user avatar
0 votes
0 answers
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Why do planes generally curve north and not south? [duplicate]

I know that the shortest distance on a sphere is a curve and not a straight line, so that's why planes curve when they fly. But why is that planes curve north and not south? For example, when if I hop ...
Nate's user avatar
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3 votes
2 answers
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What is happening with this aborted flight?

I live near Southend airport in the UK (SEN, EGMC) and noticed a strange behaviour of a cargo jet that does daily trips to Spain. It started out on runway 05, took a normal departure until it turned ...
Jon Bates's user avatar
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-1 votes
1 answer
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Does a Chicago to UAE flight fly over the Arctic Circle or go around it? [closed]

I'm speaking about a flight from Chicago to UAE. Does it fly over the Arctic Circle or go around it?
William's user avatar
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0 votes
1 answer
441 views

Why don't planes fly directly to their destination? [duplicate]

Here is the flight path for B62554 from PBI (Palm beach) to JFK. This flight almost goes back on itself when off the coast of South Carolina. I was wondering why this flight takes such a contorted ...
Parsa's user avatar
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7 votes
1 answer
350 views

Was this the intended flight path?

I have verified numerous approaches from the NW to PVR airport and they all look like this, basically approaching on the left side of the mountain then taking a right towards the airport: But then ...
Bax's user avatar
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19 votes
2 answers
4k views

Why would an airliner make a 90° course change?

Why would this airliner be doing a 90° course change at cruising altitude? I saw this while waiting for a traffic light to change. 9 Jan 2020 1:42 pm (18:42 UTC) at Virginia Beach, VA, coordinates: ...
TIM FESSLER's user avatar
17 votes
1 answer
5k views

Why don't aircraft fly direct via oceanic airspace from UK to Iceland?

Whenever I watch the routes of aircraft flying between BIKF (Keflavik, Iceland) and e.g. EGLL (Heathrow, UK), they make a small turn in between to avoid oceanic airspace. See for example this flight ...
Florian's user avatar
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2 votes
2 answers
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Is it legal/possible to request a flight-path change from Domestic to International minutes after take-off, for a privately owned jet?

This is related to the recent escape of Carlos Ghosn from Japan. While we don't know the details yet, M. Ghosn allegedly boarded a private plane from a small airport near Osaka [and probably in a kind ...
Déjà vu's user avatar
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7 votes
1 answer
720 views

Why do eastbound transpacific flights fly at lower latitudes than their westbound counterparts?

I’ve seen some routes for flights from Asia (mainly Hong Kong and Shanghai) to the west coast of North America, which fly at lower latitudes than flights in the other direction (which they fly closer ...
Maverick221's user avatar
15 votes
5 answers
7k views

Why did my LGA-ORD flight make an S-shaped turn round the time it was passing a storm?

On a recent United UA1709 flight into Chicago (hit by a heavy storm at the time), I felt a noticeable descent, combined with two wide banks around 1 hour before landing. Looking at the flight path, I ...
qawsedrftg's user avatar
3 votes
1 answer
305 views

last 747 flight path, was this hand flown? How was this communicated with ATC? [duplicate]

Elal's last 747 flight made this nice path of a 747, how was this done? Could this be entered into the computer and flown? or was this hand flown The path looks quite neat Also what is the ATC ...
adardesign's user avatar
1 vote
0 answers
87 views

Where can I find Take off and Landing Zones for GIS Integration?

I am a GIS specialist and looking to plot the take off and landing zones into major and minor airports across the UK. This is dominantly to see land affected by noise pollution from air traffic. If ...
James B's user avatar
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8 votes
1 answer
619 views

Why did BA 199 fly a missed approach followed by circles?

I just saw G-YMML (operating as BA 199) execute a missed approach and make weird circles. What is happening here? (FlightAware permalink)
Agile_Eagle's user avatar
0 votes
4 answers
3k views

How to estimate the altitude of an aircraft at a given distance from a runway?

What altitude should a heavy class commercial freighter be at on a descent path 17 nautical miles from a runway? (Say SDF airport)
James Carter's user avatar
4 votes
2 answers
648 views

Do stratospheric business and military jets use the North Atlantic Tracks?

The North Atlantic Tracks (NATs) are the airways generally used by airliners taking approximate great-circle routes between North America and Europe; due to the wild swings in wind strength and ...
Vikki's user avatar
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4 votes
2 answers
469 views

How (and when) does Heathrow alternate arrival paths?

I've noticed that flights over Richmond (particularly arrivals) seem to have significantly reduced over the last few weeks. This is based on looking at Flightradar, as well as listening to the noise ...
Duncan Felix's user avatar
5 votes
2 answers
280 views

What factors made my flight land at runway 02 in El Prat?

Aircraft normally land at Barcelona's El Prat airport using either of the 25 runways, along a flight path hugging the coast, with a flip to the 07 orientation generally associated with bad weather. ...
E.P.'s user avatar
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4 votes
5 answers
963 views

Are there generic routes all pilots can fly?

The recent question Is the destination of a commercial flight important for the pilot? stoked my curiosity but the answers were rather explaining that a pilot does not necessarily need to know where ...
WoJ's user avatar
  • 526
26 votes
4 answers
6k views

Why would a flight no longer considered airworthy be redirected like this?

I ran across this tweet covering the saga of Smartwings 1201, a 737 MAX 8 that was apparently redirected from Prague to Ankara after the MAX was grounded by the EU. (flightaware.com) It seems like ...
Machavity's user avatar
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1 vote
1 answer
712 views

What is the relation between altitude and vertical speed?

I recently saw 2 graphs on a flight path on BBC, shown below. For those interested, it's the path of the recently crashed Boeing 737 max flight ET302, but that's irrelevant to my question. My ...
ElRudi's user avatar
  • 111
2 votes
1 answer
780 views

Why was Air India flight AI101 diverted to SHJ 5 times in the past few days?

Air India flight AI101 using a 777-300ER on multiple westbound and eastbound routes was diverted to SHJ airport in Sharjah, UAE. I am curious if there is a specific reason. It cannot be a coincidence ...
user3017778's user avatar
30 votes
4 answers
9k views

Why would the Pakistan airspace closure cancel flights not headed to Pakistan itself?

The India-Pakistan feud has heated up again, with Pakistan closing its airspace as a result. I know many international routes fly over Pakistan, and that the closure would cause issues, but this ...
Machavity's user avatar
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1 vote
3 answers
4k views

Can a VFR flight follow an IFR route?

Can a VFR flight follow the same route of an approved IFR route (such as those found on Forefight Route Adviser) using waypoints and Victor airways?
Keith's user avatar
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3 votes
1 answer
326 views

Do Instrument Landing Systems restrict building heights and can these be overcome?

A recent territorial spat between the countries Malaysia and Singapore over an ILS implementation made me curious. I'm interested in finding out about ILS and how an implementation of one would affect ...
JustACuriousMan's user avatar
0 votes
2 answers
438 views

Why does JBU1825 from Ft. Lauderdale to Lima show a large zig-zag in the route?

Why oh why is this non-stop flight flying such a zig-zag? (screenshot from FlightAware)
David's user avatar
  • 127
4 votes
1 answer
487 views

Why are flights from Fuzhou or Xiamen to Taiwan not allowed to overfly Taiwan strait?

The flights from Kinmen or Matsu to Taiwan always overfly Taiwan strait. Why can't the flights from Xiamen or Fuzhou use the same route, fly over Kinmen or Matsu first and then to Taiwan directly, but ...
Michael Tsang's user avatar
4 votes
1 answer
352 views

Are there any airports that require arriving/departing flights to fly under an obstruction?

Are there any airports with approaches and/or departures that require pilots to fly under an obstruction at some point (thus meaning that, for at least a short segment of the approach or departure, ...
Vikki's user avatar
  • 28k
3 votes
2 answers
148 views

Do pilots have a generally preferred "traffic" resolution?

For aircraft cruising along at altitude, it is common for the controller to assign an aircraft a new course or altitude or speed for some reason such as "for traffic". My question is, would most ...
digitgopher's user avatar
  • 5,281
3 votes
1 answer
3k views

Best glide speed vs. best glide angle? Maximum glide range?

I have some open questions regarding best glide in a descent: I understood, that there is a best glide speed. This best glide airspeed occurs at the highest lift-to-drag ratio (L/D). This best glide ...
opt12's user avatar
  • 195
42 votes
5 answers
25k views

Why would a flight from North America to Asia sometimes fly over the Atlantic?

I am going to take AC031 from Toronto to Beijing in a couple of weeks, I searched its flight path, most of the time it will fly westbound after taking off from Toronto and continue west across the ...
Yifan Nie's user avatar
  • 547
2 votes
1 answer
431 views

How much can a plane deviate from its route to Paris (CDG and ORY) before an alert is raised?

I was reading about the 9/11 hijacks and the Wikipedia information about flight AA 11 mentions that Of the four hijacked aircraft on 9/11, the nine minutes of advance notification about the ...
WoJ's user avatar
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