On Friday, 15 December 2017 13:26:46 UTC, Roger Hayter wrote:
whisky-dave wrote:

On Friday, 15 December 2017 12:54:58 UTC, Bob Eager wrote:
On Fri, 15 Dec 2017 11:59:43 +0000, Tim Streater wrote:

In article , Bob Eager
wrote:

On Fri, 15 Dec 2017 02:24:24 -0800, whisky-dave wrote:

The economical cruise altitude rises as the plane gets lighter, so
they want to climb gently all the way across the ocean.

But they don't do that.
They don't take the shortest route from A-B they take a route where
they can be tracked.
Friend flew from gatwick to cacun on tuesday explan why they didn't
just fly directly across the ocean

You don't really understand map projections, do you?

Am I missing something here? Is the inebriated one referring to Cancun
(Yucatan peninsular, Mexico)?

why not take the What's your drinking nationality...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-30500372



Take the which If so, a great circle route would appear
to take one across the Atlantic and down the East US coast, across the
tip of Florida to Cancun.

He is. It's useless explaining to him, though.

you mean you can't explain why the aircraft 'hugs' the cost and has to
stay in a particular corridors . Can you explain why it's important for an
aircraft to be on radar so that other planes know where you are at a point
in time and space ?

Because it isn't true. Nowadays commercial planes have transponders
which talk to each other (hence the name), anyway.

Did you get that from the TV a week or so ago, most airports still rely on radar NOT GPS.

Air traffic control ATC uses radar NOT GPS.

All commercial aircraft are equipped with transponders (an abbreviation of "transmitter responder"), which automatically transmit a unique four-digit code when they receive a radio signal sent by radar.

These transponders use RADAR NOT GPS.



google it.
do airlines use GPS or radar

Yes, but while GPS (Global Positioning System) is a staple of modern life, the world's air traffic control network is still almost entirely radar-based. Aircraft use GPS to show pilots their position on a map, but this data is not usually shared with air traffic control.

of course things are improving but it's the airports that have to upgrade there;s only 3 that currently have full GPS in use, the most recent being london city airport another I think is Brussels.

In Europe GPS approach aids are still limited to a very limited number of airports and have not yet been widely adapted, despite pilots much preferring them over traditional and inaccurate ground based approach procedures.



http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-26544554