I think the other way gives stretches too much and too long over water with ofcourse too little landing sites.
A route over China and Russia would be possible, that way it would be possible to fly almost entirely over land from India to Alaska. But there are probably many other reasons (diplomatic ones for example, and the northpole weather) not to take that route.
Flying in that direction also means "help" of rotation direction of earth itself plus staying more easily within daylight hours of each time zone itself. Would be interesting if and why they take that same route also backwards.
RK-3449 is showing at FR24 west of Crete at 10.30 UTC. (i would say 3 hours of flying from that posistion to Istres is a bit long, so perhaps a bit earlier then 15.20.
Edit : RK-3449 at 11.50UTC south of Naples.
Surveillez cet espace pour l'arrivée de quatre F vingt deux Raptors de l'unité de la RAF Lakenheath anjourd'hui.Le unite pour ces oiseaux est le vingt-cas Fighter Squadron de Tyndall AFB , en Floride.
Surveillez cet espace pour l'arrivée de quatre F vingt deux Raptors de l'unité de la RAF Lakenheath anjourd'hui.Le unite pour ces oiseaux est le vingt-cas Fighter Squadron de Tyndall AFB , en Floride.
Surveillez cet espace pour l'arrivée de quatre F vingt deux Raptors de l'unité de la RAF Lakenheath anjourd'hui.Le unite pour ces oiseaux est le vingt-cas Fighter Squadron de Tyndall AFB , en Floride.
The language here is English
translation of the whole text into english is:
QIE Monday 18 April, watch this space for the arrival of four F twenty two Raptors of unity of the RAF Lakenheath anjourd'hui. The unit for these birds is the twenty le vingt-cas Fighter Squadron de Tyndall AFB, en Floride - case Fighter Squadron of Tyndall AFB, Florida.