Does the rotation of the earth have any impact on flight times of an aircraft?
NO, the rotation of the earth does not affect your flight time. Your speed is determined by how fast your plane can move through the atmophere. It maybe true that flying west to east is slightly faster in general but that is a result of the jet stream traveling in that direction and has NOTHING, to do with the rotation of the earth. One Gotcha though that may be causing some of the confusion. Though your time in the air will not be affected, the diffence in time zones does have an effect. If you fly NY to LA and it takes 5 hours in the air and you take off at 12:00pm (NY time) you will land at 2:00pm (LA time) you only lose 2 hours that day eventhough you were in the air for 5 hours. You will see the sun for and extra 3 hours that day. On the return trip the oppisite is true. If you leave LA 12:00pm and fly for 5 hours to NY, you will land at 8:00pm NY time. Taking up 8 hours of your day even though you only flew for 5 hours. You will see the sun for 3 hours less than you would have on
