World Without Curve

Why do they fly so high?


Why do they fly so high?



Redditor: RickGrimes13


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  • The image is badly out of scale. The radius of earth is approx. 6380 km. 33000 feet is only 10km. If we draw the same picture to scale then the difference of the length of arc between 5000ft vs 33000ft would be negligible and we can actually see that visually too.

    The benefits of flying at high altitude overweighs any increase in distance.

    Also, planes need to climb up from the source slowly to the altitude and then climb down towards the destination. The arc would start and end at the ground level.

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