Commercial polar routes?

Folks,

I am a sailor and not an airline pilot.

Recently I had a lunch with a 747 captain and the subject of
polar airline routes came up.

I maintained I didn't think any commercial routes went directly over
the pole or north of 80 N.Lat because the great circle routes from
say San Francisco to London didn't go that far north.

He said they did indeed fly much further north on such a route
due to prevailing winds etc.... It still seems incredible that this
is true because the normal position of the North Polar Jet is
considerably below 60 N.Lat.

Anyhow how would a London-Seattle route go?

....or even Berlin to San Francisco?

In short, are there any commercial routes flying over 90 North?

Bill

www.nyx.net/~wboas

[Jürgen Exner]

wrote:
> I am a sailor and not an airline pilot.
>
> Recently I had a lunch with a 747 captain and the subject of
> polar airline routes came up.
>
> I maintained I didn't think any commercial routes went directly over
> the pole or north of 80 N.Lat because the great circle routes from
> say San Francisco to London didn't go that far north.
>
> He said they did indeed fly much further north on such a route
> due to prevailing winds etc.... It still seems incredible that this
> is true because the normal position of the North Polar Jet is
> considerably below 60 N.Lat.
>
> Anyhow how would a London-Seattle route go?

Kopenhagen-Seattle regularly hits from 70 to at least 75 degrees N.

> In short, are there any commercial routes flying over 90 North?

The traditional polar routes are Europe - Fairbanks/Anchorage and Europe -
Japan.

jue

[Bartscher]

>Anyhow how would a London-Seattle route go?
>
>...or even Berlin to San Francisco?
>
>In short, are there any commercial routes flying over 90 North?
>
>Bill

>www.nyx.net/~wboas
>

I've been on some pretty far North routings from Hong Kong to Chicago nonstop,
or Detroit to Tokyo (much farther North than I've experienced on the Europe
flights). We came pretty close to the North Pole on an HKG-ORD flight, but
unfortunately, I don' t know what the highest Latitude we reached was.

[Orval Fairbairn]

In article >,
(Bartscher) wrote:

> >Anyhow how would a London-Seattle route go?
> >
> >...or even Berlin to San Francisco?
> >
> >In short, are there any commercial routes flying over 90 North?
> >
> >Bill
>
> >www.nyx.net/~wboas
> >
>
> I've been on some pretty far North routings from Hong Kong to Chicago nonstop,
> or Detroit to Tokyo (much farther North than I've experienced on the Europe
> flights). We came pretty close to the North Pole on an HKG-ORD flight, but
> unfortunately, I don' t know what the highest Latitude we reached was.

On my globe, it looks as if you went to about 80 - 85 N, if you went
over Russia and China.

[David Lesher]

> writes:

>Folks,

>I am a sailor and not an airline pilot.

>Recently I had a lunch with a 747 captain and the subject of
>polar airline routes came up.

>I maintained I didn't think any commercial routes went directly over
>the pole or north of 80 N.Lat because the great circle routes from
>say San Francisco to London didn't go that far north.


http://gc.kls2.com/ is great fun.

Note there's not just an ETOPS but also a search and rescue
issue -- survival time on the ice is mere minutes...unless
you're dressed for it...

--
A host is a host from coast to
& no one will talk to a host that's close........[v].(301) 56-LINUX
Unless the host (that isn't close).........................pob 1433
is busy, hung or dead....................................20915-1433

[William W. Plummer]

How far up does the magnetic compass work? How do you update the
direction gyro?


David Lesher wrote:
> > writes:
>
>
>>Folks,
>
>
>>I am a sailor and not an airline pilot.
>
>
>>Recently I had a lunch with a 747 captain and the subject of
>>polar airline routes came up.
>
>
>>I maintained I didn't think any commercial routes went directly over
>>the pole or north of 80 N.Lat because the great circle routes from
>>say San Francisco to London didn't go that far north.
>
>
>
> http://gc.kls2.com/ is great fun.
>
> Note there's not just an ETOPS but also a search and rescue
> issue -- survival time on the ice is mere minutes...unless
> you're dressed for it...
>

[Peter Bjoern]

On Sun, 23 Jan 2005 18:38:16 -0700, > wrote in rec.aviation.misc:

>I maintained I didn't think any commercial routes went directly over
>the pole or north of 80 N.Lat because the great circle routes from
>say San Francisco to London didn't go that far north.

>In short, are there any commercial routes flying over 90 North?

Routes from Scandinavia to the US west coast regularly goes over 90 North.

SAS (Scandinavian Airlines System) pioneered commercial flights over the pole
back in the 50's.

The first commercial polar flight was the DC-6B flight from Copenhagen to Los
Angeles on November 15th 1954.

Today with modern navigational aids such as INS and GPS, navigation is of course
not a problem, but back in the 50's it was a different manner.

Short distance (relatively) radio navigational aids like VORs and NDBs were not
present or usable in the polar regions (as is also the case over the oceans such
as the North Atlantic), so LORAN was commonly used for navigation.

Because the longitudinal lines are rapidly converging near the poles, navigation
with reference to the normal lines was not possible. A plotted straight line
near the pole would cross the longitudinal lines at such rapidly changing angles
that you would have to constantly make very major changes to your course to
maintain a straight line of flight. And then the magnetic compass was useless so
close the magnetic pole.

So a new concept of so called "grid navigation" had to be developed. An
artificial grid of parallel lines was overlaid on the polar region maps and the
courses were plotted with reference to the grid lines, thus having a straight
line of flight crossing the grid lines at a constant angle and therefore a
constant course. The heading was determined by use of a gyro compass which was
set before entering the region where the magnetic compass became unusable.
Positions were then obtained by dead reckoning, LORAN navigation and also
celestial navigation.

Regards

Peter