Straightest flights - takeoff to cruise to landing

Take off from Sky Acres (44N) on rwy 35, lifting off by mid field. Turn left 10 degrees. You are now pointed directly at the runway at KPOU. Fly 10 miles and land on rwy 25 at Poughkeepsie (KPOU).
You don't even have to climb to pattern altitude at 44N (1600 ') because KPOU pattern altitude is 1034.
You just glide down hill to the runway.
 
This doesn’t score well because of the short distance, but it’s the straightest leg I can remember flying.

Depart KCLE, runway 6R heading 058
On course heading 058 for 10 miles
Land KBKL runway 6L, heading 065.
 
RussR said:
My interest is more on the Memphis end of it, can you really fly straight-in to OLV runway 18 and not have to maneuver either to avoid the NQA Class D, the antenna towers, or enter the Class B and get vectored for traffic?
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It’s been years since this flight and things might have changed. typically its direct with several step down altitudes to miss the traffic into Memphis. Approach tells you to expect the visual. About 5 miles out over to tower and straight in (winds permitting to 18).
 
mcmanigle said:
A great circle route doesn't involve turns unless you're accounting for the interactions between the earth and the atmosphere, Coriolis effect, etc. But in the simplest Earth-is-just-a-sphere approach, a great circle route doesn't include any turns. (To prove this to yourself, take a globe and plot out a great circle route. If you look at the globe from directly above the route, it will look like a line.
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Yes if you are talking polar coordinates if you fly the great circle route and never get off course your delta phi is at zero the whole time. Point being you can just change the coordinates or frame of reference to make a flight straight.

It might be interesting to consider a flight where you never change you latitude but change your longitude i.e directly east to west.
 
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