NC 109 Airport Tour

Last July 4th I flew my RV-8 to all 109 public use airports in North Carolina. To find the shortest route I enlisted the help of Bill Cook, a mathematics professor at Georgia Tech. Bill is known in mathematics circles as the "guru" of the Traveling Salesman Problem (TSP). He recently sent me an animated map that follows my flight to all 109 airports. Go to the following link and select the "TSP Maps" link.

http://www.tsp.gatech.edu/news/nc.html

If you enlarge the map you can even see each runway as you travel along. I am toying with the idea of doing South Carolina sometime this summer. Stay tuned!

TSP problem

There was a thread about route optimization last year. http://www.vansairforce.com/community/showthread.php?t=20727&page=3

I wonder if the good professor actually proved that your route was optimum. If so, he should collect his million!

T.J.