Re: [Fwd: Flight from San Francisco to New York]

[Doug Craigen <dcc@CYBERSPC.MB.CA>]

> A patron brought this question to a reference desk in the next county,
> which has passed it to us:
> "Why would it take a plane flying non-stop from San Francisco to New
> York longer than the same type of plane flying from New York to San
> Francisco, when weather, speed, wind, and flying conditions are exactly
> the same each way?"

If the wind is the same, it is aiding the plane in one direction and
opposing it in the other direction (headwind or tailwind).  There is one
puzzle here for me though, and that is the weather moves west to east
which would speed up the SF to NY trip.     So for example, in a quick
net search I found http://www.casdn.neu.edu/~etam/flight-info.html where
a flight from Boston to San Francisco which took 6:09, while a flight
from San Francisco to Boston took 5:38.  So the known asymmetry is
opposite to the question stated above.  Perhaps part of the problem here
is somebody incorrectly calculating time zone changes for one direction
when they considered a trip.

Perhaps there is some ambiguity in the way this is stated.  If the
intent is to ask about the hypothetical case where the wind reverses
when the plane reverses ... thats a more difficult one to answer, but I
don't then know what the basis is for the question in the first place.

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Doug Craigen
          Latest Project - the Physics E-source
          http://www.dctech.com/physics/