Random non-political musings while watching the Senate
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I'm working at home this morning, watching a not-terribly-riveting Senate floor debate over HF 2916, the fire safety account. So naturally my mind is wandering. I glanced out the back door and saw something that I see many times over the Twin Cities:
[image]
See that contrail? It's up about 37,000 feet. The thing is cruising along, reaches the Twin Cities, and then takes a hard left, more to the East (this is looking directly West). Why?
Fuel prices are bankrupting airlines, why not just take the route indicated by the red line (I put that there, that did not appear in the sky over Woodbury, just for the record) and save a few thousand dollars? There can't be a plane going in the other direction to avoid, they fly at different altitudes.
Or maybe it has something to do with the curvature of the earth and they're not really turning at all?
Tell you what. I'll keep an eye on HF 2916 for you. You figure that out and let me know.
Back to work.
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