Flight Time Estimator

Flight time starts from the great circle distance between two airports, the shortest path over a curved Earth. Divide that by the aircraft’s speed over the ground, then allow for taxiing, climbing, and the queue for the runway. The wind is what makes the ground speed differ from the airspeed, and on a long route it is worth an hour.

Great circle distance formula (Haversine formula): d = 2R × arcsin(√(sin²(Δlat/2) + cos(lat₁) × cos(lat₂) × sin²(Δlon/2))) where R = Earth’s radius = 6,371 km (3,959 miles)

Flight time formula: Estimated Flight Time = Great Circle Distance ÷ Ground Speed Ground Speed = Airspeed ± Wind Component (subtract headwinds, add tailwinds)

What each variable means:

• Great Circle Distance: the shortest path between two points on a sphere. Real flight paths deviate from this due to jet streams, restricted airspace, weather avoidance, and ATC routing.
• Airspeed: the aircraft’s speed through the air. Typical commercial cruising: 850–920 km/h (530–570 mph) for narrow-body; 900–960 km/h for wide-body.
• Tailwind/Headwind: winds at cruising altitude (35,000–42,000 ft) significantly affect ground speed. Transatlantic jets often ride the polar jet stream for 100–200 km/h tailwind assistance eastbound.

Reference: typical flight times and distances:

• New York → Los Angeles: ~3,940 km, ~6h 00m westbound / ~5h 15m eastbound (jet stream)
• London → New York: ~5,570 km, ~8h 00m westbound / ~7h 00m eastbound
• Sydney → Dallas: ~13,800 km, ~17h, one of the world’s longest routes
• Dubai → London: ~5,500 km, ~7h 30m

Note the direction in the first two lines. Westbound is the slow one on both, because you are flying into the prevailing westerlies. The gap is 45 minutes on a domestic crossing and a full hour on the Atlantic.

Those four are scheduled times off a timetable, and this calculator will come in 20 to 40 minutes under them. That is not an error in either number. An airline schedules the flight it can keep on a bad day, so the published time carries padding for the taxi queue, the holding pattern and the gate. The model below gives you the flight, not the schedule. If you are working out whether a connection is tight, use the timetable figure; if you are working out what the wind is doing to a route, use this.

Worked example: New York (40.7°N, 74.0°W) to Los Angeles (34.0°N, 118.2°W). Haversine distance ≈ 3,940 km (2,448 miles). A commercial jet at 550 mph airspeed, flying west into a 50 mph headwind.

• Ground speed = 550 − 50 = 500 mph
• Air time = 2,448 ÷ 500 = 4h 54m
• Ground allowance at this distance = 40 minutes
• Block time ≈ 5h 34m

Turn the aircraft around and fly east with that same 50 mph now behind you. Ground speed becomes 600 mph, air time drops to 4h 05m, and block time is 4h 45m. Same distance, same aircraft, 49 minutes apart, and the only thing that changed was which way the wind was blowing.

Turn that back on the reference list and it lines up. Feed the same 2,448 miles in with a 90 mph headwind instead of 50, which is a normal winter jet stream rather than a mild one, and block time comes out at 6h 00m. The published figure is not a different answer, it is the same answer with a realistic wind and an airline’s padding on top.

Time zone note: Flight time is hours in the air, not the difference on the clock. A 5h 30m flight from New York (Eastern) to Los Angeles (Pacific) lands 5h 30m after it departs, but the clocks show only 2h 30m have passed because LA is three hours behind. Fly the other way and a 5-hour flight appears to take 8.

Looking for RC batteries? Different subject entirely. The RC aircraft flight time calculator works out how long a quadcopter or model plane stays up on one LiPo pack, from capacity and current draw. Nothing here applies to it, and nothing there applies to an airline route.