On the Polar Route
February 12th, 2009
Tomorrow, on Friday the 13th, I will travel over the north pole on my way to Hong Kong. It’s a Boeing 777, operated by Continental, an I’ve got a window seat. From the New York Times:
For decades, the North Pole routes were scarcely used, partly because of the cold war, a time when the Soviet Union was suspicious about aircraft of any type flying over its far northern airspace.
Now it’s pretty common, but there’s 3 things I’m thinking about:
- I’ll be exposed to solar and cosmic radiation close to the magnetic north pole. I also might see some aurora activity.
- Compasses are useless, and geo-stationary satelites near the equator are not available, so airlines rely on GPS and inertial navigation.
- It’s a 16 hour flight, so the earth rotates two-thirds of the way around while I’m flying over it. But the plane also has to compensate for extremely powerful winds, so the route won’t be a straight line, but probably curvy, depending on weather.