Nonstop to NZ?
 

:confused:
Have there ever been nonstop flights from the UK to New Zealand?
A Kiwi colleague of my Dad's says he remembers doing the journey on a 747 in the 1970s but surely it would have needed at least one stop.

No chance in a Classic 747. A 747-400 can perhaps do it on a positioning flight with no passengers and maybe extra fuel tanking in the hold! A B777 or A340-500....in fact I don't think any can!

This one could because it's got in-flight refuelling. I'm not sure you get air miles, though, but the IFE is a doozie.

Which reminds me of a question I've wanted to ask for a while - assuming no problems with crew hours, food (or dunnies) and access to in-flight refuelling, how long could a 747 stay aloft before it had to land? Do any components have a maximum continuous operations limit? (this may end up in a bit of fiction I'm writing)

R

My longest flight in a 747-400 was 13.50, Hong Kong to Heathrow. We had a bit more space for fuel, but not much.

I'm finished with that sort of flying, it's horrid!

SLF,
Not sure about component op time limits, but I have always understood that engine lubricating oil reserves were the limiting factor, as these can't be topped up in flight. Happy to be corrected though .....

Cheers,
PW

On 17 August 1989 the first Qantas 747-400, VH-OJA 'City of Canberra', touched down at Sydney Airport after a non-stop flight from London to Sydney. The 18,001km flight, under the command of Captain David Massy-Greene, took 20 hours, nine minutes and five seconds and established a new world distance record for a commercial aircraft. When Qantas had helped establish the Kangaroo Route in 1935 it had taken five different aircraft types, three airlines, 42 refuelling calls, two railways and up to 14 days to bridge the same gap.

http://www.qantas.com.au/info/about/history/details16

Full story at

http://www.pprune.org/forums/archive...p/t-76314.html

Never a commercial operation. Colleague probably thinking of the Air New Zealand operation stopping at Los Angeles. In the 1970s it was a DC-10.

Airbus did a test flight nonstop Toulouse - Auckland - Toulouse with an A340-300 in the A340s early days. IIRC it routed outbound over Asia and returned over North America.

To be fair, an excellent and well planned effort. But if I recall, it had special cooled fuel and was topped up with minimal fuel used to taxi, virtually no load and stripped out of unnecessary weight (even low water supplies for the very few special passengers). Not really a representative operation, but a good illustration of capability.

From http://www.pprune.org/forums/archive...p/t-76314.html


Fuel for the flight became the critical factor. Fuel weight is limited by tank volume, but if we could somehow make the fuel more dense then we could carry more weight of fuel and it is mass flow that affects the engines. We investigated the possibility of chilling fuel, as this would increase the density slightly. But how to chill 60000 USG and would the effect of cooling be enough? Where could we get some dense fuel? So the search began. Someone suggested we use JP10, an increadibly dense synthetic fuel used by military for some missile applications. That was no good, Boeing advised, the wing structure is not designed to carry that kind of weight and besides, the winglets of this aircraft are not fitted with outrigger wheels. The search went on.

A slight increase in fuel quantity could be achieved by overfilling the fuel tanks. Normally the fuel tanks are never quite filled, to leave some airspace for expansion and prevent fuel spillage if it warmed after fuelling. By overriding the volumetric ****-off of the fuelling system, we could overfill the tanks by about 500 USG. We knew at least on airline used this procedure on a regular basis, provided fuelling was completed just prior to departure.

We kept paring weight out of the aircraft. Alll normal galley equipmet not required on the flight would be shipped to Sydney via Los Angeles. Safety equipment, except the amount required for the actual passengers on board would also be shipped. The same would apply to any cargo restraint equipment. The holds would be empty. The operating weight of the aircraft came down and the range capability edged up.

We started to run actual plans through our flight planning computer. We were tantalizingly close. The fuel for the flight was critical. The search went on......

Approaches were made, quietly, to various oil companies in Europe to see if they could produce the fuel we needed. One after another they said no. Even if they had the deed stock they would need to crack such an exotic brew, the 60000 USG we wanted was either too small or too large an order, and the price would be horrendous.

The fuel was all we need now to make this flight theoretically possible, but time was running out. The aircraft delivery date had now been fixed for the 9th of August. We would soon have to announce our intention and to seek the cooperation of ATC over Europe to expedite the flight and ensure we would be able to get our required route and altitude. Lower than normal altitudes would cause excessive fuel consumption and that could terminate out attempt in the very early stages of the flight. The achieved altitudes in the first two or three hours of the flight would be critical.

Because the flight was one off, we also had to obtain everflight clearances from all the countries over which we would fly, and that can take around 30 days. We needed that fuel. ***** *******, our fuel director felt his telephone bill would keep OTC going for many years.

Behind all this was some doubt about how the aircraft would actually perform. We would not know until we flew it across to London and actually measured its performance. One percent in fuel mileage could make the difference, and that kind of variation from aircraft to aircraft was not unusual.

Finally Shell said they could make the fuel. At last! We could now announce the flight and start real preparations. Shell then said they would move to make the fuel in West Germany because that was where the feed stock was. How would we transport the fuel to London? Tankers we said. Not that easy they said, we dont have them to spare. Another hurdle. Then we found some tankers, not the usual behemoths, small ones, but tankers nonetheless. Nine would be required.

On the subject of commercial long-haul flights, hasn't it all been done before decades ago, eg. TWA L-1649 Starliners from LHR to the US West coast - sometimes well over 20 hours ?

IIRC I read somewhere that AF-1 and the E4s have the ability to top-up engine oil in flight from on-board reservoirs. Anyone care/able to shed light?

I know they were advertised as without a stop, but didn't they make a tech stop at Winnipeg ?

Fairly standard stuff, though, on a bad winter's night.

The one in my book that still raises my eyebrows was the HKG-LHR which took 16:03. But it won't surprise anyone to know that that was in an A340. It was the sort of night when 13 was being used (this was Kai Tak days) even though it was the middle of the night. And things got no better as we went along.

Think the limiting factor on the long flights apart from crew hours etc, is really the amount of fuel that can be carried. Engine oil etc no problem in the modern jets. The A340-600/RRtrent rarely has more than one quart of oil added after the flights like LAX-London or HKG london.

I've seen (well in a VHF sense) the SQ flight in question 17 times over the last 3 months on the ACARS here in SW Ireland. I thought there must have been some mistake when the display read

"C1,.9V-SGC,06DEC28,08.55.57,KEWR,WSSS,SIA021...."

Amazing endurance indeed. It would be crossing somewhere along the western seaboard of Ireland as I get that full coverage, being perched here close to the last parish before NY as they say!

At this time of year the flights back from LA to HKG are regularly between 14-15 hrs on the 744. Having come from a regional in the uk it is definately not real flying with half the time spent in a bunk! The time off is great with 18 days off per month. For me it is a life style not a job.

[quote=EGAC;3024433] The plane, a US Navy Neptune patrol aircraft, manufactured by Lockheed and nicknamed "Truculent Turtle," was specially fitted with extra gasoline tanks to test its capacity for long-distance flight.

Just a thought......presumably the fuel was calculated to last for as long as the test was scheduled to continue, which I guess was how long it did continue.

So what was supposed to happen if it turned out that some other essential component had no capacity for long-distance flight, and failed before the end of the programmed test duration? What did they expect might not have a capacity for long-distance flight, that needed to be tested to find out?

Long term cold soaking of wings, fuel system, flying controls, undercarriage mechanism, engine controls.......you name it, just about everything! How do you know there will be no problem unless you demonstrate it?

SIA21 and UAE202 regularly pass over Manchester on route from New York
to Singapore and Dubai non stop which tickles me as the MAN-SIN flight quite often departs at the same time on it`s 12-13 hours flight and SIA21 has already done 6+ hours

G-I-B