Wednesday, May 6, 2009

Great Circle Route

Brian is figuring out our Great Circle Route today. Because the earth is not flat like the maps indicate, the shortest distance between two points (i.e. The Galapagos and Fatu Hiva, Marquesas) is NOT a straight line. One of our navigation software programs has a tool for plotting the sequence of waypoints that are more direct than a straight line would be. It can shave off lots of miles! If you think about it, this is one of the reasons why the air traffic routes are arcs.

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