Gonna be jumping on an Air China flight to Beijing in a bit – is it easy to say what we’ll be flying over, is it a standard route or can the flight crew take the scenic route, if they’re in no hurry? Just wondering what we’ll see out of the window. 🙂

@danstw may be in the air, try and send him a message. From vague memory “over the top” so Russia mainly

Yep over the top. Across Russia and down. Coach seats are pretty small in Chinese planes. I hope you get some decent legroom.

Nothing…. Well nothing you will recognise

Straight up, let the world spin and back down. 8)

On the Beijing route you will fly over Mongolia, just south of UlaanBaatar. There are limited airways into China for international flights.

The earlier part of the flight is more variable, as flight planning software will look for better winds/air temps/closed airspace, and plot the minimum cost route.

I would guess Northern Germany, Russia(just south of Moscow), Kazakstan then Mongolia.

Enjoy the inflight catering 😯

Something like this (courtesy of http://www.gcmap.com/mapui?P=lhr-pek)

Rachel

Rachel – that would be the great circle route (shortest distance across a sphere) but the issue with China is that there are only about 3 (from memory) airway routes accessible to international carriers. Ive not flown to Beijing recently, but I think the route will be a little further south.

Thanks friends – not expecting to see a lot, I just like to know what we’re over. 🙂

Ive actually just checked Flightradar and Rachels link above is pretty accurate for yesterdays flight, so go with that!

My most frequent route is Tokyo Haneda, which flies way north, often up over the Barents Sea. Some of the Geography in Northern Siberia is absolutely stunning.

@ dan t – two blogs, decision height and flight level, used to post occasional cabin-view pics of terrain. Decision height was by a former geologist, so particularly good. Do you know of any others you’d like to share?

Thanks

You are all wrong.

You do know the earth is flat?

http://enclosedworld.com/index.html

We’re ultimately heading for Haneda, just taking a quick couple of hours to chill out in Beijing. 🙂

(Wish we were going direct, but c’est la vie. 🙂 )

Slowoldgit – sorry, I don’t, but if it’s of interest, I could try to take some? Last week on the way back from Tokyo I was watching Ice Breakers on the river Ob, looking down 1 mile deep Open Mines, and looking at 200 mile wide ox-bow lake formations.

Thanks, let’s see if others would welcome this.

Last week on the way back from Tokyo I was watching Ice Breakers on the river Ob, looking down 1 mile deep Open Mines, and looking at 200 mile wide ox-bow lake formations.

I’d love to see photos of that lot!

I’ll try and take some photos from my end of the plane as well. Between drinks. Obviously.

The most striking thing I ever saw was somewhere around Angola, approximately. Below were sand dunes on a darker substrate: long, linear ones. Maybe the wind was changing direction because there was an equivalent second set at 90deg. They made a tartan pattern visible from space.

or can the flight crew take the scenic route, if they’re in no hurry?

Have a whip round and bribe them to fly a few parabolas. Probably best to do that before lunch has been served though.

There isn’t particularly anywhere we want to see (oo – except the Himalayas maybe! :), it was more whether there’s a set route or whether these things change. 🙂

Pondo – routes definitely change to find the most advantageous winds, as time is money. In areas like Europe, USA, North Atlantic the options for airways are almost limitless. The sky is mapped out int airways – effectively roads in the sky between fixed waypoints, enabling both pilots and ATC to know where you are and where you are going.

Countries like Russia & China are very restricted in how many airways they have, which means in these areas, route choice is very limited, and you tend to fly the same way most times.

Probably best to do that before lunch has been served though.

If they spill my Chablis, there’ll be hell to pay!

🙂

Cheers Dan, always appreciate the insights. 🙂 Only my second ever long haul, loved having the live tracking – went sort of Helsinki way, over St Petersburg I think? Then down to Ulaan Batoor and on to Beijing. Two observations, Air China food made “ok” with flying colours, and that Russia is big.

Some Siberia photos – sorry for the quality, taken with my old iPhone.

http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/going-to-japan-who-is-best-to-fly-with/page/2?replies=51#post-7631462

I have just been to Hong Kong on a Cathay Pacific 777 and the route we took was pretty similar to that posted by Rachel. Lots of cloud cover so did not see much. I guess less than 10% of the flight was over water which surprised me.

We went north of Moscow and Ullanbatour (spelling) was just about the only city name I recognised once we crossed the Urals.

I guess plane routing is easier nowadays than in the late 20th century. To get to HK then I guess the route was more Southerly and had to dodge Israel and Vietnam when wars were going on there.

Hope you see more than I did.

On one flight to our usual Chicago we went past the tip of Greenland. That was incredible, as was the gigantic whirlpool formation on the other side…

I love flying over Greenland. It’s absolutely stunning.

Chatting afterwards to my pretty big standard father in law about the sights, he said ‘oh yeah I know’.. He used to be in the navy.

Worked a united out of Heathrow to San Francisco sometime last year. Usually they fly up over Scotland but this guy confused the lot of us as he flew East out through Clacton.

Had a chat with him when he checked in and he said tower had asked him to confirm his routing as well!

Turns out some smart person in United flight plans figured out there was massive winds blowing up over Scandinavia so filed his plan via Stockholm. Turns out it saved him 1hr!

Agree flying over Greenland and the the northeast coast of Canada(? Dan correct me if I’m wrong) then the manhattan skyline is one of my favourite flights…

The routings over the Atlantic are quite variable, depending on the position of the jetstreams. Normally flights to the Eastern Seaboard of the USA are south of Greenland whereas the West Coast flights(Seattle/LA/San Fran) cross it. Sometimes Chicago/Toronto might do too.

I agree on the Manhattan Skyline – always stunning. Manhattan looks so small compared to the rest of the city.

We call it north about, or south about. Depending jet stream depends whether bnn or ock gets the kicking in the morning. Lam just gets battered all the time though….