The phenomenon of an airplane flying ‘before it takes off’ is not an error in the space-time continuum; This regularly occurs as a result of trans-Pacific aircraft crossing the International Date Line (IDL) between Japan and California. According to NOAA, if a flight from Japan to California crosses the IDL from west to east while traveling east from Japan on Saturday, the aircraft crosses the 180-degree meridian, requiring the calendar to be reset on Friday. High-speed aircraft, notably the SR-71 Blackbird, can take advantage of this geographical ‘loophole’ by flying at speeds in excess of Mach 3.2, giving pilots and passengers a ‘gain’ of one day in getting ahead of the Earth’s rotation and arriving at their destination the previous day.
180-Degree Meridian: How the Pacific Ocean Resets the Calendar
The ‘time travel’ effect is created by the International Date Line (IDL) – 180 degrees longitude – located in the Pacific Ocean. The IDL is defined by NOAA as an imaginary boundary separating two consecutive calendar days. When a commercial airliner crosses the IDL traveling east from Japan to California, it gains a full day on the trip. To keep pace with the world calendar, the airplane’s local calendar/clock system must be reset back 24 hours, making it possible to travel on the same date twice.
sr-71 how blackbird beat the clock
While this progression of one calendar day occurs with all commercial airlines making this journey, the most extreme examples of ‘time travel’ were actually recorded by the famous SR-71 Blackbird aircraft. The SR-71 traveled at speeds in excess of 2,100 mph (Mach 3.2), making it capable of traversing a complete rotation of the Earth. NASA flight data indicate that when the pilots took off from Okinawa, Japan, on Saturday morning and flew to California, they were able to complete the trip so quickly that they arrived at Beale Air Force Base on Friday afternoon, ahead of their departure time; Thus, the amount of sunlight actually increases much more beyond the horizon.
Chronological Paradox vs. Physical Time Travel
This is the difference between one type of time travel in science fiction (the time travel paradox) and another type of time travel in physics (theoretical physics). When someone comes across a great distance in another time period, he or she will have a calendar that indicates the time change; However, their biological clock will continue to advance. As noted in a theoretical physics journal, this type of time travel violation (along with Einstein’s theory of relativity) is an artificial convention (human) for measuring time, and it remains a fascinating consequence of the necessity of a 24-hour day on a spherical Earth that rotates every 24 hours.