Why airplanes don't fly in a straight line: an explanation for Elon Musk
The American billionaire Elon Musk made the Internet laugh when he did not know the answer to the question of why an airplane does not fly in a straight line. The founder of the world's largest private aerospace company, SpaceX, which launches rockets into space almost every day, was thinking about a simple flight problem.
Users of Musk's own network even began to mock the billionaire, who likes to make fun of others in his snarky comments on various topics. However, this time, it seems, they rubbed their noses in it, saying, "It's not like launching rockets."
The owner of the aerospace company Elon Musk does not know how airplanes fly.
Source: Getty
A funny story began when the founder and CEO of the logistics corporation Flexport, Ryan Petersen, asked Elon why the plane flying from San Francisco to Houston was not flying in a straight line. The SpaceX owner replied: "It should have been flying."
Map of the flight from San Francisco to Houston.
Source: x.com/typesfast
X users immediately reacted to Musk's ridiculous response. "I don't even know what to write that's funny anymore, it's like... how do you even launch those rockets," Melaniya Podolyak commented on the post.
"Maybe it's not so hard to launch those missiles," joked another netizen, Andrii.
"What will happen when he finds out that the rocket does not go into space at a strictly right angle," continued Mykola.
"In fact, the situation is different: the shortest route between two points on the layer turns into an arc on the map," Capt Nomad tried to explain.
Airplanes don't usually fly directly from point A to point B.
Source: x.com/typesfast
In the end, to understand why the plane didn't fly in a straight line, Elon Musk could have at least asked Grok, an AI chatbot developed by his own company, xAI.
"The plane didn't fly in a straight line from San Francisco to Houston because airplanes typically follow curved paths known as great circle routes, which are the shortest distances between two points on a globe like the Earth," Grok explained.
"Although the map shows a curved path, it is actually the most direct route when you consider the curvature of the planet. However, several factors can cause deviations from the ideal route in a large circle: weather conditions, air traffic control, limited airspace, jet streams, and fuel efficiency and safety," the chatbot added.
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Elon Musk
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