[Guest]

NY city and Istanbul are at same latitude (nearly).

All planes those fly directly from NY to Istanbul always follow a route that is not parallel to that latitude, instead, they make a curved route.

Why?

[Guest]

NY city and Istanbul are at same latitude (nearly).

All planes those fly directly from NY to Istanbul always follow a route that is not parallel to that latitude, instead, they make a curved route.

Why?

The Statue of Liberty block the route?

Sorry just wild-guessing, I haven't really check the map.

[Guest]

The Statue of Liberty block the route?

Sorry just wild-guessing, I haven't really check the map.

You don't have to check the map, this is a fact about nearly all two cities that are on the same latitude.

not all latitudes

[Guest]

You don't have to check the map, this is a fact about nearly all two cities that are on the same latitude.

not all latitudes

Due to there are winds blowing along the flight, a plane has to make a curve route to compensate the result of the wind direction?

[Guest]

Lines of latitude are not the shortest distance between two points on earth (or any sphere in general). The only exception to this is two cities on the equator.

This is because the shortest distance between two points on the surface of a sphere lies along a great circle through those two points (i.e. a circle with centre at the centre of the sphere and radius equal to the radius of the sphere) The only line of latitude that is also a great circle is the equator.

An interesting note is that the same is not true of lines of longitude, due to the difference between how longitude and latitude is derived.

[bonanova]

not to waste fuel.

Constant latitude route is longer than great circle route.

[Guest]

Wow! I learned new knowledge today.

Thanks neida and bonanova!

[Guest]

The longer the flight, the bigger the advantage

The curvature of the spherical earth surface makes the shortest distance between two points a straight line which on a map curves north, then south. The lattitudes (straight on a map) are actually curved lines on the earth's sphere.

[Guest]

Neida and bonanova gave the answer.

But I want to add a few words to make the answer more understandable:

The shortest route from NY to Istanbul is said by neida and bon. to be the greatest circle. I will define it as: The circle that has a center of earth and having these two cities at its perimeter.

[Guest]

That the closer the latitude is to a pole, and the farther apart the starting point and the destination are, the more of an advantage there would be to this... but by taking a curved route towards the pole which the latitude it is closest to, it would shorten the flight relative to the amount of time it would take to go straight along the line of latitude...