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Plan-G and the edge of the world


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I have recently used Plan-G V3 to plan a flight from Alaska to Russia across the Bering Sea.

 

I encountered a problem as I tried to plan my route. I was able to plot my route only so far as I reached the edge of the map. My next point, only fifty or so miles further west was on the other edge of the map. Instead of plotting a course for those 50 miles westward, a course was plotted eastward, back around the world to the point on the other edge of the map a distance of a full circumnavigation less 50 miles!.

 

Am I doing something wrong? Or is it just not possible to plot a course across the map ends in Plan-G?

 

Any help to solve this would be much appreciated! 

 

J.

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You can also map your route on Google Earth first using its path functionality and then, If you have some intention and spare time, you can visualize your route (westward from Alaska to Russia) by reversing your bearing in GE's KML file and off you go...

See here for reference: https://developers.google.com/kml/documentation/kmlreference#heading

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SkyVector (free) has that capability too. Their new "World" series of charts, "World VFR", "World High" and "World Low" correspond to RW aviation Sectionals, Enroute High and Enroute Low charts but are world wide and continuous.

There's a Flight Plan pop-up and you can paste a text string of your route into it. It will put a line on the chart and it will display on all of them, at any zoom level.

 

John

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If you do get a chance to talk to someone at Plan G about the problem, the term you need is "Antimeridian".

It goes like this: The maps common to those of us located in the Northern hemisphere countries are usually based on the centre of the map placed at the prime meridian (Zero degrees east and west). The Antimeridian maps have their centre located at 180 degrees (E/W), or at the International Date Line.

This caused me endless headaches with the navigation systems on my boat during a recent transit of the Pacific. I was back and forth across this line many times, especially in the Fiji area. Weather maps were the biggest aggravation as the system tried to download weather files stretching in a band around the entire planet instead of across +/- 10 degrees. Try this at 5K bandwidths over a HF radio.

The guys in Australia and New Zealand will be better sources of solutions as they deal with it all the time.

Finally solved my problems by returning to Canada.

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Interesting.  I guess if Plan-G included an Anti-meridian map in its map options then the problem would go away simply by using that map to plan any date-line transits.

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It's not just Plan-G.  I recently dropped a route text string into SkyVector's flight planner, which usually works OK.  This particular route crossed the International Date Line at a very high latitude, above 70 north.  The route line on the map was completely screwed up, more or less making a round-the-world detour in the Arctic to get back to the south-bound remainder of the route.  This is not a trivial issue.

 

John

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