139
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Accepted
What is this plane flying in overlapping circles pattern doing?
It's acting as a television broadcast relay for the 2020 Tour de Wallonie cycling race, taking place in Belgium from August 16 through August 19.
The flight paths you posted correspond roughly to the ...
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108
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Accepted
Why would a flight from North America to Asia sometimes fly over the Atlantic?
Those routes are extremely similar.
They're basically two almost-a-straight-line routes over the arctic ocean, except that the second one has deviated a bit to the right, so that it's gone just on ...
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91
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Why would a flight from North America to Asia sometimes fly over the Atlantic?
I took Hewgill's picture and added the routes in the OP (I just eyeballed this, so I won't guarantee accuracy).
With the FlightAware maps it looks like drastically different routes, but from this ...
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86
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Why would a flight from North America to Asia sometimes fly over the Atlantic?
The direct route from YYZ to PEK flies almost over the north pole:
Sometimes, routes need to deviate a bit from the "direct" route, due to prevailing winds or other traffic. If your route from YYZ ...
- 9,192
74
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Why do airliners hug the coast on flights?
The reason is that the aircraft has filed a route along airways and not a direct (great circle) route. In most countries, an IFR flight cannot just file a direct route and they have to use airways. An ...
- 58.3k
72
votes
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Why would a plane fly in circles for 6-7 hours and then land?
The aircraft F-GJFA is operated by Aero-Sotravia and is used (among other things) for live broadcasting of TV signals during sporting events:
5 dedicated planes are available, they have been ...
- 58.3k
54
votes
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Why don't most planes fly in a straight path?
In short
This is counterintuitive. Ignoring Earth curvature not shown on maps, the routes which appear curved on the screenshots are actually nearly straight. Compare these two different projections:
...
- 80.9k
45
votes
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Why do airplanes sometimes turn more than 180 degrees after takeoff?
Commercial flights are given clearance from ATC to fly specific Standard Instrument Departures (SIDs). In this instance in Venizia, the pilots upon requesting clearance would have been told by ATC to ...
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43
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Why would an airliner make a 90° course change?
This answer assumes the manouevring was related to the Military training activities going on off-shore. While plausible, there is another plausible explanition in ymb1's answer.
That was a British ...
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43
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Why don't flights fly towards their landing approach path sooner?
In general, IFR flights through controlled airspace use airways (highways in the sky) to fly between waypoints. The particular flight you show looks like it arrived via the N774 airway to a waypoint ...
- 58.3k
42
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Why would the Pakistan airspace closure cancel flights not headed to Pakistan itself?
To give an example of how flights can be affected by this in ways to make them impossible, Iranian airspace is closed from sunset to sunrise (unless things have changed recently).
Any aircraft that ...
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41
votes
Why aren't there direct flights connecting Honolulu, Hawaii and London, UK?
Simply, because no airline has determined the route makes economic sense.
A poll doesn't necessarily translate into a ready market of passengers. Sure, lots of people might check a box on a survey ...
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37
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Why would a flight from North America to Asia sometimes fly over the Atlantic?
The flight did not fly across the Atlantic. Rather, you're seeing the results of stereographic projection.
More specifically, the Earth is Spherical. Navigation needs to be thought of on the basis of ...
- 39.8k
34
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Why would a flight no longer considered airworthy be redirected like this?
There could be a lot of reasons for this...
EU closed airspace to 737's MAX 8's on March 12
They needed to go into a holding pattern until ATC figured out where to put them
They needed to be in the ...
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33
votes
Flying upside down without feeling it
This sounds like a barrel roll.
This is a corkscrew-like flight path in which the airplane rotates around an axis between its longitudinal and pitch axes by flying along a path which lies on the ...
- 237k
29
votes
Why did my LGA-ORD flight make an S-shaped turn round the time it was passing a storm?
I find it hard to believe that this was a holding pattern of some sort.
Believe it. An hour before landing would be about the point at which the aircraft will start its descent to its destination. ...
- 3,856
28
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Why might this trans-pacific flight not follow a more direct route?
Looks like they were avoiding a storm system from Oregon north into Canada.
- 28.7k
23
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Why did this aircraft fly in this pattern over Southern Italy?
That flight pattern is almost certainly aerial surveying / mapping work and it's quite common all over the world. Companies like Google, Bing, etc pay for low to medium altitude photography and ...
- 75.1k
23
votes
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Why don't aircraft fly direct via oceanic airspace from UK to Iceland?
I don't think they are specifically avoiding Shanwick Oceanic airspace. The reason seems to be related to the airways in the Scottish airspace. In general, you have to file a route using airways when ...
- 58.3k
23
votes
Why do airplanes sometimes turn more than 180 degrees after takeoff?
A couple of reasons for departures such as this are:
terrain. Perhaps the most obvious (but omitted by me and kindly pointed out by Randomhead 😃). The effect of terrain on departure and arrival ...
- 30.5k
21
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Why did my LGA-ORD flight make an S-shaped turn round the time it was passing a storm?
Based on your provided flight info, I looked up the track history on flightradar and did see some potential traffic conflict that might have tempted the controller to route your plane that way.
The ...
- 39.8k
20
votes
Why does Turkish Airlines avoid Israel when going to Amman, but not on the return leg?
I am not sure anybody but Turkish Airline's dispatcher can give the exact reason, but there is a couple of possible reasons that have nothing to do with politics or safety:
The combination of ...
- 56.5k
19
votes
Why don't most planes fly in a straight path?
That is a straight path. It is the map projection being used that is curved.
This is because Earth is a round planet, not a flat surface, and creating accurate maps have always been a problem.
Take a ...
- 37.9k
18
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Why would the Pakistan airspace closure cancel flights not headed to Pakistan itself?
Not mentioned in the other answers is simply logistics coordination. If you can't fly over Pakistan, that suggests that maybe you have to fly somewhere else. Perhaps flying around means an ...
- 6,081
17
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How are airline pilots assigned routes? Are there easy and tough ones?
The answers to your questions vary greatly depending on the individual airline, type of equipment, what kind of flying they do, as well as contractual and union (if any) work rules. The one thing that ...
- 39.2k
17
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Flight QS101 has been only flying butterflies over an airport recently. What is this about?
This is most likely a training or pilot certification flight.
The "butterfly" you see is a standard traffic pattern flown on pretty much any airport / -field when doing visual landings.
The ...
- 30.5k
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