History Making Qntas Non-Stop Flight New York To Sydney

[icyfroth]

Qantas has completed the world's longest non-stop flight on a commercial airliner, flying from New York to Sydney, with 49 passengers and crew members on board.

The 16,200-kilometre test flight took 19 hours and 16 minutes, Qantas said on its Twitter account on Sunday.

Qantas QF 7879 departed New York's John F Kennedy Airport on Friday night and landed in Sydney's Kingsford Smith Airport on Sunday morning.

Forty-nine passengers, including Qantas executives, researchers, journalists, and crew members were on the flight, which was used to run a series of experiments to assess health and well-being onboard.

"This is a really significant first for aviation," Qantas CEO Alan Joyce said after arriving in Sydney.

https://www.news.com.au/national/breaking-news/new-yorksydney-nonstop-qantas-record/news-story/46386...

Hubs and I hope to go to New York next June.

[martinw-48]

Modern passenger gas turbine aircraft are one of the worst carbon emitters on the planet.
We are going to have to give up on our addiction to them in order to make actual changes to carbon dioxide pollution.
We could actually use helium dirigibles.
Fly with the prevailing winds.
It would mean extra time and distance to some destinations but the positive outcomes would certainly outweigh the negative.
Unfortunately suggestions like these just elicit abuse because people can't seem to get over the fact that they think their lives are so important that the tiniest loss of time sends them absolutely mental.
That's why we have so much road rage.
You wasted a second of my time. I'll now try to kill or maim you and waste an enormous amount of both our times to punish you etc etc

[martinw-48]

Alan Joyce.
A greedy useless oxygen theif.
Hope he gets some absolutely mind blowing blow jobs with all that coin otherwise what's the point of being so cashed up.
It's not like he does anything to mske the lives of fellow human beings any better

[martinw-48]

https://youtu.be/4rQF-Im9pQc

[martinw-48]

Sorry, icyfroth.
Joyce and Qantas boil my blood.

[kopenhagen5]

Boeing 747 Jumbo 50 years on - http://www.boeing.com/commercial/747/50thanniversary

[icyfroth]

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@martinw-48 wrote:
Sorry, icyfroth.
Joyce and Qantas boil my blood.

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No need to apologise, you and I can agree on this one.

It's still a remarkable service, though.

[springyzone]

If it is the same report i read, all of them were in business class. (just checked. It is about the same flight but not the same article. The one I read was by one of the test subjects)

The report i read said it was no use testing for economy passengers as they couldn't make it much better for them anyway and they weren't the main focus as they weren't likely to be repeat passengers.

As most passengers on such a flight will be in economy, I think it is a shame their needs are being ignored.

The news report i was most interested in though was one I saw a week or so ago, where it was predicted that by about 2035, 4 hour flights from eg Sydney to London, would be available. From US to England, even better, about 1 hour.

I suspect 2035 will be too late for me, I won't want to be gallivanting around by then if i am still here. 

I know an 11 hour flight home from Shanghai last year (in economy) was tedious in the extreme. Not sure I want to cope with 20 hours.

These things would be okay in business or first class where you have the seat make a flat bed to sleep on, but economy is a whole different ball game.

[martinw-48]

They didn't want to test economy class because a death due to deep vein thrombosis would hurt their PR.

[tasfleur]

I couldn't think of anything worse than being on a plane for that amount of time.  It's not only the higher DVT risk but then there is sheer boredom, staff fatigue impact etc.  Economy seats can be a nightmare for a long haul flight anyway, let alone for that kind of duration.  I could think of many more reasons never to do it.

I would rather go by slow boat ...