Making a loss on long haul flights!

[poden]

Gray_Lensman wrote:

poden wrote:
... (great circle navigation doesn't actually occur in FS2004) ....

I don't agree with that statement, because if you fly some of the longer historical flights such as Lindbergh's or Earhardt's Atlantic Solo
flight's and follow the direction in FS2004, you will find that you are gradually flying a great circle and slowly changing your compass
heading to do so. Now this may not be so apparent on faster flights, but it is readily apparent on these slow historical reenactments and
the flight engine is the same for both the reenactments and the modern flights you may be flying.

Its true the flight paths LOOK like great circles, but they get projected onto essentially a flat map, and at high latitudes, the east-west scale
distortion becomes quite large. This implies that great circle routes passing through high latitudes have to fly longer distances than they would on a
sphere. The thing is, I've read this, but I haven't actually tested it myself. Maybe I'll do an experiment where I take a plane up to the "polar
barrier", and just fly along it in an east-west direction (with unlimited fuel), and see how rapidly I can tick off degress of longitude.