Are sectional paths correct across "long" distances?

Can you tell me how much longer the long line is?
1571.43727838 1578.04946769 6.61218931502
It's under 7nm by my simple calculations.


This makes no sense at all, and fails a basic sanity check. (and accepting
such numbers blindly the way high technology leads you to disaster).

The line looks like it goes across half the country. I'll say 1000 miles. At
the midpoint (500 miles) it is claimed that the lines are 6 miles apart. Ok,
basic trig - the longest line is the hypotenuse of a skinny right triangle.

sqrt ( 500^2 + 6^2 ) = 500.035998704093303602766435049485

So for two legs, we go an extra 0.0719974081866072055328700989694951 miles.

Google claims that a nautical mile is 6 076.11549 feet, so we end up going an
extra 437.464567122496852083885712506382 feet, or 437 feet
5.57480546996222500662855007658699 inches.

We can probably ignore the last few decimal places in the inches.

Jose


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