I recently flew from Madrid to Los Angles (MAD - LAX) and had the luck to have a window seat and was able to GPS track the flight, something I have had mixed luck with in past attempts:

On the way back I was in the center isle and was not able to get a GPS signal so had to use the plane’s built in tracker to get an idea of the route:

It is interesting that going from Europe to California they go on an “up and over” route, where the way back is more across the whole continental US route. I asked my little buddy (ChatGPT) why this was, but he gave a pretty wishy washy cover all bases response about different routes depending on a variety of factors including head winds, fuel economy, bla bla bla. So I had to go to google and near as I can figure must be to avoid the atlantic jet stream that flows west to east. That also might explain with the MAD - LAX trip took 11 hours 55 minutes and 8 seconds while the LAX - MAD trip only took 10 hours 38 minutes and 37 seconds (a full hour and 17 minutes less!).

Thanks for reading and feel free to give feedback or comments via email (andrew@jupiterstation.net).