Great-circle navigation

Great-circle navigation is like drawing a line on a round ball to get from one place to another place that is far away.

Imagine you are playing with a globe. You want to get from New York to London. You trace a line with your finger on the globe to connect the two cities. This line is called the great circle. The great circle is the shortest path between two points on a sphere.

Now, imagine you are flying from New York to London. The airplane can't fly in a straight line because the Earth isn't flat, it's round. The airplane needs to follow the great circle path to get there in the shortest distance possible.

Pilots use special tools to find the great circle path for their flights. They use maps and computers to make sure they stay on the shortest path.

Great-circle navigation helps us travel shorter distances and save time and fuel. It's like following a secret shortcut that only pilots and navigators know about!