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Started by Alistair Grant (@captain_al) ·

flights to Asia go over Alaska because the map is lying

Assumed it was an airspace thing. It's just that a straight line on a flat map isn't the shortest path on a sphere.

5 sources · 28 min down the hole

How I got here

Started with
“why do flights to asia fly over alaska”
Ended at
ETOPS

The Trail

  1. “why do flights to asia fly over alaska” (google.com)
  2. Great-circle distance (en.wikipedia.org)
  3. Mercator projection (en.wikipedia.org)
  4. Tissot's indicatrix (en.wikipedia.org)

    the little circles that show how much each part of the map is stretched. very good

  5. ETOPS (en.wikipedia.org)

Keep going