h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

When Concorde was flying it was possible to fly from UK to America and arrive before you had left. That is if you took off at 9:00 AM UK time, you would be having your breakfast in America at 8:00 AM the same day.

However, this is still possible with conventional aircraft like a Boeing 747 flying at around 350 knots as apposed to the Mach 2 that Concorde used to fly at. How?

Donald

How about this: with Concorde, you would arrive in the US before they started serving breakfast, so you would have to wait until 8 o'clock when they did serve breakfast.

Or: with the Concorde, you would just get to the 8 o'clock breakfast FASTER ?

Or: with Concorde, you could start in London and have breakfast at 8 in Hawai, with Boeing, you start in London and have breakfast in N.Y.?

Y.

Concorde Flight time to NY, roughly 3 hours. Time difference at NY is 5 hours behind London, so leaving LON at 09:00 would get you in at 07:00 NY local time.

A Jumbo doing the trip takes approx 7 hours, so leaving at 09:00 you would get into NY at 11:00 local time. You would miss breakfast, but be there for brunch would

Who said anything about New York! I deliberately avoided naming a city but it can be done.

Donald

Cant be done! Name an example and lets debate

I think New York was named because that's where Concorde used to fly to.

RF

Get closer to the poles and you can do it walking.

London to Anchorage, Alaska taking the Polar route. London to Anchorage is about 4000 nm as the crow flies, giving a flight time of eight hours. Anchorage is nine hours behind GMT.

You fligh North from Heathrow, over Scotland and passing just to the East of Iceland. Across the northern part of Greenland and then parallel with the North coast of Canada passing within 600 miles of the North Pole. You hit Alaska at the northern end of the border with Canada and then continue flying South to Anchorage arriving at Anchorage 1 hours before you took off.

Basically you are taking a short cut across the top of the World while the Sun has to go the long way round. It will only work to Anchorage or alternatively Providencia on the East coast of Siberia. It won't work to Seattle as Seattle is to far South and besides, it is further from London to Seattle than it is from London to Anchorage.

Count Zero had the right idea.

Donald

A 747 cruises at about 550 mph.

The Earth is about 24,000 miles around at the equator so at that lattitude the point at which the sun is directly overhead (i.e. local noon) is moving at about 1000 mph. This is well within Concorde's capability but not possible in a 747. At higher lattitudes the circuit gets less until you reach the North Pole when you can walk round the Earth in a few seconds.

To make this trip you would have to fly at a lattitude where the circumference is less than 13200 miles. This is (if my maths is right) 58.31 degrees north. London is about 51.5 degrees north so is too far south as is Manchester at 53.5 degrees north and even Edinburgh at 56. I'm not sure what the lattitude of Lerwick is but it might just be possible to fly from there around to some point on the East coast of Canada and arrive at the same time you left the UK.

F

You are right Fathom but Anchorage is 61 degress North which compansates for Heathrow being a bit further South.

Donald

I heard a bar bet one time. It went something like, "Which is farther south: Anchorage, Alaska or London, England?"... the answer purportedly being Anchorage... Not true... not even close... Not even Aberdeen is farther North than Anchorage.

Anchorage: 61°13'N
Aberdeen: 57°9'N
London: 51°32'N