Originally Posted by
s0ssos
I guess I mean a route that doesn't make sense on a flat versus curved world view. Like if you look at SIN to LAX vs SFO, one goes further north than the other. And if you look at SIN to JNB it is basically a straight line, not really curving. So same as if you just put a map on a table and traced the shortest distance point by point, disregarding the curvature of the earth.
The problem is that there is no such thing as "a map." There are dozens of ways to project a sphere onto a flat surface, none of them good for all purposes. Conclusions such as these may be correct for one projection but not for another. If you are assuming a Mercator projection, say so, though its distortion at high northern and southern latitudes makes it useless for flight paths that go into those regions or that one is comparing with other paths that go into those regions.
Aside from that, though, your earlier point about the lack of refueling stops anywhere near the middle of several long-distance great-circle routes is valid. Breaking up a long trip to refuel, thus carrying less fuel, makes sense only if such stops exist. On most polar routes they don't, though IIRC some flights from the US east coast to Asia refueled in Anchorage in the days before non-stop flights of that distance were practical. ANC may not have been in the ideal location for that purpose, but it was close enough.