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What countries do you fly over to get to Delhi from N.Y.C.?

What countries do you fly over to get to Delhi from N.Y.C.?

Old Mar 25th, 2010, 07:12 PM
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What countries do you fly over to get to Delhi from N.Y.C.?

When I flew Air India recently, the flight path display either wasn't working or was disabled for security reasons. So, anyone know what countries I traveled over?
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Old Mar 25th, 2010, 07:26 PM
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Canada, Russia, China.....
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Old Mar 25th, 2010, 07:31 PM
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Assuming AI flies the same route as CO's EWR-DEL, they should fly over:

Canada

Any, all or none of these: southern tip of Greenland, Iceland, just north of Scotland

Norway, Sweden, Estonia, Russia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan

The route across Northern Atlantic and Scandinavia can vary according to jet stream, but from Estonia onwards, they usually fly the same specific air-routes.
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Old Mar 25th, 2010, 07:32 PM
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Hanuman - No, they don't fly over the North Pole and through China.
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Old Mar 25th, 2010, 07:44 PM
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You're probably right rkkwan. I was using this google earth flight viusalization and took a guess.

http://www.barnabu.co.uk/google-eart...th-animations/
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Old Mar 25th, 2010, 07:51 PM
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Oh, I think it may also cut through Finland too.
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Old Mar 25th, 2010, 08:18 PM
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Wow this is great. Download the "flight route animations" from: http://www.barnabu.co.uk/google-eart...th-animations/

Open Google Earth and then click on the downloaded file from above.

Now drag the slide bar on Google Earth and you'll see all the flight paths from the major US cities.
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Old Mar 26th, 2010, 06:50 AM
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i love to look out the airplane window and see the actual borders of each country...
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Old Mar 26th, 2010, 07:38 AM
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Is that like crossing the State line in the US? From Massachusetts to Connecticut must be very exciting for you!
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Old Mar 26th, 2010, 08:14 AM
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I'm sure some body is designing some glasses that will show you the borders and other information.

Anyways, there are land borders (with no natural geographic features) that you can recognize from the air. Like between North and South Korea at night. Or Haiti and the Dominican Republic.
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Old Mar 26th, 2010, 08:38 AM
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I think the atmosphere is less "stiff" once you crossed over the Massachusetts state line as well.
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Old Mar 26th, 2010, 08:39 AM
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"i love to look out the airplane window" my dog love to do that out of our car too!
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Old Mar 27th, 2010, 07:57 AM
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Thanks Hanuman!

That program shows Canada, Greenland, Norway, Finland, Russian, Khazakstan, and Kyrgystan.

Continental, OTOH, flies across sub-sahara Africa and across the Indian Ocean to get there.
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Old Mar 27th, 2010, 09:40 AM
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Am I missing something? The program shows great-circle route. Not actual flight path.
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Old Mar 27th, 2010, 03:54 PM
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How do you know that isn't the actual flight path?
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Old Mar 27th, 2010, 04:06 PM
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Okay, I found it on a website called FlightAware:

Canada, Scotland, across Europe and just below Ukraine, northern tip of Iran, square across Afghanistan, finally Pakistan.
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Old Mar 27th, 2010, 04:27 PM
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I love the "across Europe" part. Doesn't that account for over half the countries you flew over?
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Old Mar 27th, 2010, 04:38 PM
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That program shows the great circle route (i.e. shortest distance across the globe) between two points.

Actual flights don't follow them. There are many factors - in many parts of the world, including continental US, planes flight along specific routes. Over ocean where there's no specific routes, they will take into account wind so that the flight time will be shortest.

Other factors include fly-over rights, which have to be agreed with the specific countries and also involve fees. Which is why some flights between the southern US and Hawaii may stay north of Mexico so they don't need to pay, even though it may not be the shortest and most efficient routes.

One place I can see the flight routes is flightaware.com.

Take AI102 JFK-DEL for 3/26, as an example:

http://flightaware.com/live/flight/A...133Z/KJFK/VIDP

The route listed on the right says:

MERIT3 MERIT HFD PUT TOPPS REDBY CARPE 5500N 05000W 5800N 04000W 5900N 03000W 6000N 02000W ATSIX AKIVO UN603 BILLY UN603 SUM UP612 FLS UN623 GRM UP607 LATKA UP607 NOTAR

I am not an expert on this, but there are information you can get out of there:

MERIT = a waypoint near New Haven, CT: http://www.fallingrain.com/waypoint/US/MERIT.html

CARPE = a waypoint just off the Labrador coast:
http://www.fallingrain.com/waypoint/CA/CARPE.html

From then on, it passes through 55°N 50°W and so on, until it picks up:

ATSIK = a waypoint near the Faroe Islands, half way between Scotland and Iceland:
http://www.fallingrain.com/waypoint/UK/ATSIX.html

From there, it passes various waypoints, but also using specific air routes, like UN603, UP612, etc.

The last waypoint shown in that descrption is NOTAR, which is just east of the Estonia/Russia border:
http://www.fallingrain.com/waypoint/RS/NOTAR.html

Now, unfortunately, flightaware.com doesn't track AI102 beyond NOTAR. But it does for CO82, EWR-DEL. For example, this flight on 3/25 also goes past NOTAR:

http://flightaware.com/live/flight/C...108Z/KEWR/VIDP

MERIT HFD PUT EBONY N123A YAY HECKK 5300N 05000W 5600N 04000W 5900N 03000W 6100N 02000W 6200N 01000W GUNPA ARKEN SUTOK ARS NEBSI UP607 NOTAR R58 ORTOK R58 TU R11 FV G3 AL B365 BK B923 GUTAN A368 URL B824 ODIVA A66 TMD A466 TRZ A466 AMDAR A466 SITAX A466 IGINO IGIN1A

GUTAN = waypoint near Uralsk, Kazakhstan, just south of the Russian border
http://www.fallingrain.com/waypoint/KZ/GUTAN.html

ODIVA = near Uzbekistan

AMDAR = near Termez, the border town betwen Uzbekistan and Afghanistan

SITAX = just inside Pakistan

Finally, IGINO is 40 miles west of DEL:
http://www.fallingrain.com/waypoint/IN/IGINO.html

A466 is the air route these flights use across the last few countries. They don't vary from day to day. But if you check the initial flight path, some days they'll fly further north, cutting through Greenland, and some days, they fly further south. All depends on wind.
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Old Mar 27th, 2010, 04:49 PM
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Just want to add that there are flights that can go routes thousand of miles apart for outbound and return. Most extreme example is Singapore Airline's SQ 21/22 EWR-SIN and SIN-EWR.

SQ22 SIN-EWR is always trans-Pacific from Singapore, but SQ21 EWR-SIN can either fly across Atlantic, not unlike the flights to India. Or it can fly over North Pole, then down Russia, Mongolia and China.
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Old Mar 27th, 2010, 07:44 PM
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it must depend if they decide to turn right or left as they leave the airport...
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