Sydney, Australia - The Australian flag carrier Qantas will fly a nearly empty a Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner from London Heathrow to Sydney as part of “Project Sunrise”. The 787-9 registered VH-ZNJ will take off from Heathrow and fly directly to Sydney with no paying passengers onboard. (airlinerwatch.com) さらに...
Being Australia-based, it's all long-haul for me, maybe I've got used to it over the years.
One time I did 14h 35m BNE AUH (787-9), followed by 16h AUH SFO (777-200LR) over the Pole. A long way round, but it worked for me that time.
I had a session with the pilot in one of the galleys trying to figure just how close to the actual North Pole we came. He said it was different every time, dependent on conditions, but as far as I recall that time it was 89.3N.
For me, long haul is a lot better than airport hotels or overnights in places you don't really need to be. Mind you, I sleep well in the air.
Great to see Australian Famous Flying Kangaroo setting Records again , The City of Canberra Longest an shortest flights 747-300 now New York Syd in Kookaburra , Then Emily Karma-Nung-war-ray Doing Perth to London In new Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner . this is great for aircraft enthusiasts .
0.7 degrees longitude is the same at every latitude: 0.7 * 60 minutes/degree = 42 minutes = 42 nautical miles = 77.8 Km. That's quite close. Walkable in a day ... especially arctic summer day, but not today. And definitely not swimmable :-)
Thanks John for your quick answer re 0.7 degrees longitude at 89.7N. But What about 0.7 degrees of latitude up there? What distance might that be on the ground to the Pole? Walking of course!
Did a 12+ Military charter from Oakland to Yokota AFB on a Northwest 747 w/400+ other military dependents & service personnel. Next up was a McGuire AFB to Torreón AFB then on to Saudi Arabia non-stop on a C-141.
Could be worse, I suppose. During the early days of WW2, Qantas flew the “Double Sunrise” route from Western Australia to Sri Lanka that took between 27 to 33 hours in a PBY Catalina & later, modified B-24 bombers.
QA7879Flight test why have they decided to fly over Russia then down over mid china then out Hongkong Route , is their better wind flow giving an extra push tracked all evening and making good time . youd think fly normal route via Singapore Ciro ,Dohar London .
Thankyou Michael for your answer , you would think it was longer flying over top however tacking other aircraft they all go that way at some stage . Thankyou.
Trans oceanic and transcontinental flights always take great circle routes since that’s the shortest. Any navigator or pilot can tell you that. Otherwise it’s a thumb line course and not the shortest in terms of miles and time.
I think they backed out of that thought process. This is the latest
"New York to New Zealand and Australia Available for booking around November 20, 2019
Our inaugural non-stop flight from Newark Liberty International Airport (Terminal B) to Auckland, New Zealand will take off on 29 October 2020, becoming the first ever non-stop service between New York and Auckland.
The new non-stop flight will cut travel time from New York to New Zealand by around three hours. Seamlessly connect to Australia or domestic New Zealand."
Living in SoCal with a Daughter and family in MEL we regularly do the LAX/MEL non-stop. Both my wife and I enjoy the flight and WAY prefer it over stopping in Sydney, clearing customs, schlepping luggage and catching an internal flight down to Melbourne.
For those who describe long flights as torture? Attitude, attitude attitude!
Dreamliner economy is however, better than A380 economy. Especially as the A380 wags it's tail through the sky.
so, what is the point? Of course the 787 can make the flight non-stop with no passengers, baggage or freight, but what more will Quantas or Boeing know the next day after this pointless exercise?
Not pointless at all. Crew morale, training and feedback...the jests of what to do, and not do, to be ready for the actual flights when they start. Also, as pointed out, feedback on the length of flight to people's perspectives.
The article didn’t say there were no passengers on board — there are no PAYING passengers on board. There are likely volunteer employees or people being paid to evaluate the experience in those seats.
Yes, there were 40 employees on board besides the aircrew, which would probably be larger than usual for this duration flight. Still, what is the seating capacity of the 787 again? (Not to mention the luggage.) Unless they charge an awful lot for a seat, I'm not sure how anyone can make money flying an underbooked aircraft over huge distances.
I do not know where you got the 40 employees. Unless you classify the Boeing, Qantas and a smattering of other engineers, the 4 University research assistants and professors, the 20 normal long haul passengers that Qantas picked as guinea pigs and the media including Richard Quest as employees.
Oh I think it costs them a little more than that..lol. Remember normal delivery flights to Qantas are to LA then westbound. This thing went to LA then eastbound..talk about raking up the mileage on a new craft that hasn't even seen it's first revenue flight.
Yes I have heard of and done ferry flights myself. If you had paid attention, I was replying to Allan and discussing this "new craft delivery" This was not you normal "new craft delivery", and it was racking up mileage.
And if you read the aviation forums and other news articles, it will tell you the point if these flights.not at all unusual. What is, is the length if the trip and it’s effects on both crew and passengers. You may not know about DVT or why FOUR, yes 4 pilots are required to be onboard. This is pioneering stuff. Enough said.
Alex, I reside in Chile so all my rides west are very very long overwater flights. On a good day, the shortest is about 13 hours if we are talking directly to Australia then 15 hours. It's a long time down the tail end but its the norm for travel in that direction. The direct Santiago London flight with BA is also a bit of a numb bum experience so long-duration flights from this part of the world are absolutely normal. My longest ride to date was 16 hours from JFK to Hong Kong. The winds were not coming to the party and that was a long stretch. As for the 4 crew requirement that has been stock standard here since the inception of these long pacific flights. Two captains and two FO´s. They get a three-day layover before heading back home. A good friend who flies these routes told me the real killer with them is that during your month's duty cycle you might get to have one takeoff and one landing a month depending on the crew roster onboard. The rest of the time is monitoring ¨"GEORGE"
Alex, I admire your term "numb bum" as equally applicable to long term bus travel, driving across the US in a station wagon with four kids, or a college level introduction to organic chem.
Allan, yes, I agree! Having been a pilot for over 20 years, I’ve done my fair share of long haul flights (though not ultra long haul). I also have plenty of experience deadheading and also as a passenger post career. So, it’s not unusual at all to have 4 pilots do this since it is ultra long haul, ETOPs etc. Qantas has been doing this for some time, it’s nothing new. I was trying to educate others in this thread that may not have the type of experience you and I have!
Alex. The problem with a 20 hour flight is it technically puts all the crew over limit on duty time no matter how you divvy it up. In line with current crew regulations you would need 6 pilots on board.