Earth rotates west to east, so if you travel by airplane at a speed of about 550 miles per hour. So when you travel with the earth rotation (which has a speed of about 1000 miles per hour) you are making days longer. If you travel against the earth rotation, you are making a day shorter. That disparity of time causes an upset in our biological clock, and we are experiencing to be out of sync with the 24 day, which is also called jet lag.
When we travel against the rotation of earth, earth rotates its 1000 miles per hour plus the 550 miles per hour of the airplane speed. On a flight from Los Angeles to Paris you lose 9 hours.
My plane took off in LA at 12:20 PM Los Angeles time and arrived at 11 PM Los Angeles time in Paris, which is 9 time zones away. Suddenly it was 8:00 AM. I had lost a whole night.
When the plane follows the earth rotation, it slows down the day, if it goes against the earth rotation, it makes it shorter.
Even more fascinating was my flight back. My plane took off at 3:15 PM Paris time and the sun was about a hand’s with or two hours from the horizon. As we were flying after the earth rotation, the day slowed down. We were flying away from the sundown and after the sun. For eleven hours the sun stood above the horizon.
Travelling by plane changes the perceived duration of time. The sun races faster across the sky, or it stays nailed in a single position.
When the airplane landed in Los Angeles at 3:00 AM Paris Time the sun was just setting. Because we had been flying after then sun and slowed the rotation of earth below us, the sun had been standing close to sunset for eleven hours, and finally set when we landed in LA. And I had experienced a stretch of 18 hours of daylight instead of the usual 9 to 10 hours you have in winter.
On that return trip flying with the earth rotation, my day had been 33 hours long.
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