Hello all,

 

maybe stupid question, for example ltba(istanbul)-lax(los angeles) flight route reaches as much as 75 degrees north latitude, it is like an arc, why is it an arc? it is because shorter distance at 75 degrees latitude?

It is called a great circle route and it is the most direct route.

 

If you make three points from Istanbul to Los Angeles to the very center of the earth and slice the earth in half from those three points.....that is the great circle route along the surface of the earth from Istanbul to Los Angeles directly over the center of the earth.

i got it:) thanks for the reply.

This is a great website that maps these routes:

 

http://www.gcmap.com/mapui?P=ltba-klax

One of the things that nobody has anymore is a globe. The internet age has confined us to the flat world of our computer screens, but a globe and a piece of string are pretty simple tools that we've lost sight of.

One of the things that nobody has anymore is a globe. The internet age has confined us to the flat world of our computer screens, but a globe and a piece of string are pretty simple tools that we've lost sight of.

Google Earth and the distance measuring tool will do that, although you have to use the widgets to rotate the globe as the mouse pointer isn't available for that purpose.