Delete comment from: GeoGarage blog
I posted that original solution in 2006, but someone else made the Youtube video and probably just put up a "close enough" line.
Here's my Facebook post on the subject...
About 10 years ago I posted a challenge on the Google Earth (GE) forum to
find the longest straight line you could travel over water before hitting land again.
https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/gec-fun-games/WZ3P_IvO0pc
That forum is now archived and no one can post on that thread. But it's still there for all to see.
I posted under the username Kryten (-after my favorite mechanoid, my standard name on all forums).
My solution was pretty good, and it doesn't appear that anyone could find a longer path (-my solution was 19820 miles).
Years later I saw it referrenced in a UK article and Ken Jennings posted something on it. But nobody ever linked back to that forum.
But now, using Google Earth Pro, I was able to modify it with two great circles that split the
globe, each with a radius of 6225.25 miles (with centers from opposite points on the earth) and have verified the length
with these new coords as at least 19914 miles-- nearly 100 miles longer!
Here are the endpoints.
Karachi end:
25d 20' 41" N
66d 33' 55" E
Kamchatka end:
59d 45' 00" N
163d 22' 25" E
Some points in between:
54d 10' 20.62" S
3d 4' 12.91" E
This is about 17 miles NW of Bouvet Island
28d 21' 5.77" S
111d 23' 17.18" W
This is about 143 miles SW of Easter Island
You can recreate my line using those 4 coordinates.
It's very difficult to get a straight line that long in GE. You have to use multiple lines or a path with multiple segments.
My proven solution uses a circle that splits the earth evenly, making it a "great circle". (Anything that isn't a great
circle isn't really a straight line-- you'd have to constantly veer to the left or right by some amount.)
Jul 22, 2016, 2:38:31 PM