Which direction?

[darbo1103]

I am flying to Paris soon from Leeds/Bradford airport. Does anybody know which direction we will travel along the UK (i.e north to south) or a different direction?

[Lakitu]

I don't understand your question. Paris is South of Leeds, so you'd be travelling South. Have I missed something?

[darbo1103]

Sorry, obviously haven't explained myself properly. On some flights, ie to USA, you fly from say Manchester, go north (Scotland) and across. I would have thought straight across i.e Ireland then to USA would have been more direct. I was wondering if flying to France would be the same (not to Scotland obviously), but say across to say Holland and then down from there. I am only asking as I was wondering if I would fly over the area where I live. There, I hope this has explained it more clearly(?)

[Lakitu]

Ah, the reason the route looks so weird when you're flying over to the USA is because you're not taking into account the curve of the Earth.

On the flat screen of the TV you're watching the minature plane flying the route, it really looks like the pilot is taking a round the houses route to where you're going, but you take a globe and follow the same route, then you'll find that the pilot is indeed taking a direct route.

Hang on, I'll see what I can find on google regarding the route your pilot will take you to Paris...

[Buenchico]

The actual route will be decided by air traffic controllers. Traffic from Leeds/Bradford to Paris would probably take one of two basic routes. Either it would head roughly towards London and then turn left to cross the English Channel, or it would head roughly towards Skegness and turn right over the North Sea.

Those routes are very approximate. They're based upon nothing more than watching the BBC programme 'Britain from the Air' a week or two back, and a few very sketchy maps I've found on the web. If a guy called Clanad responds to this post, he'll be able to provide a much better answer. He's not only one of AB's finest contributors, he's also an airline pilot.

Chris

[Lakitu]

I can't find a route for Leeds - Paris, I'm afraid. The link shows you the route from Manchester - Paris (I'm not sure of the true distance between Manchester and Leeds to know if the link is a waste of time or not, I apologise if it is).

Click on 'View Route Maps' then click on Europe (not the UK), then just hover over Paris and the line will appear for the route between Paris and Manchester.

http://www.britishairways.com/travel/routeintr o/public/en_gb

[Buenchico]

Further to your secondary post (regarding, for example, transatlantic routes).

On short routes (e.g. Leeds/Bradford to Paris), all that really matters is that aircraft should remain within the 'corridors' used by air traffic controllers. These are like 'roads in the sky'. Pilots aren't allowed to 'cut corners'; they have to stick to the corridors allocated to them by air traffic controllers.

However, on longer routes, 'great circle mapping' comes into play. A normal atlas of the world uses the 'Mercator projection'. It accurately shows everywhere at the correct latitude but you can't use it to obtain bearings or distances. To find the correct ('straight line') flight path between Manchester and New York, you need to take a globe and stretch a piece of cotton between those two places. The path of that piece of cotton can then be transferred to a 2-dimensional (e.g. Robinson or Mercator projection) map. The end result looks like this:
http://gc.kls2.com/cgi-bin/gc?PATH=MAN-JFK&RAN GE=&PATH-COLOR=&PATH-UNITS=mi&PATH-MINIMUM=&SP EED-GROUND=&SPEED-UNITS=kts&RANGE-STYLE=best&R ANGE-COLOR=&MAP-STYLE=

Some results are surprising. Here's London to Alanuk (in Alaska): The aircraft starts out flying almost due North:
http://gc.kls2.com/cgi-bin/gc?PATH=LHR-AUK&RAN GE=&PATH-COLOR=red&PATH-UNITS=nm&PATH-MINIMUM= &SPEED-GROUND=&SPEED-UNITS=kts&RANGE-STYLE=bes t&RANGE-COLOR=navy&MAP-STYLE=

Chris