Ultra Long Range A350
 

Looks like Singapore to New York is soon to be viable...


Ultra Long Range A350 XWB completes first flight
.

The A350 sure is an impressive machine. I wonder what other airlines will order A350ULRs.

But Singapore did this in the past with the A340-500.

It was a few years ago with A340s. TG too out of BKK. Both failed and I wonder why SQ think ULH will work this time?

From experience of both, ULH is sh1te and I cannot understand the attraction.

Anyone remember Sabina, even their short-haul flights involved a stop at Brussels...


.

jwrobbo
 

That's a big jump. I'm trying to get my head around such an increase without more tankage.

20 hours, that was illegal under my old contract. The maximum duty time was about 16 or 17 hours, and that's not flight time, that's from check-in to sign off.

A flight that length can be massively fatiguing for crew, esp. when you don't get any sleep due to turbulence, noise or whatever.

I was thinking the same - I wonder if they're playing around with the definition of 'additional'.

Boeing has had similar capability with the 777-200LR for about 15 years.
It hasn't been a big seller - pretty much a niche aircraft.
I looked into that LAX-Singapore non-stop several years ago - the entire aircraft was an enhanced business class, 100 seats if I recall correctly. It also carried a significant price premium relative to the normal one-stop - around $2,000 more than the one-stop business class ticket.
I wasn't surprised when it was discontinued...

Qantas are always touting the East Coast Australia to London / New York direct as a winner. If you listen to the current and former CEO's they have bet the farm on Project Sunrise as the saviour for the international arm of the airline on the concept as an end of the line carrier. The latest advertorial A350-900ULR takes flight as Airbus looks towards Project Sunrise Australian Aviation. More background Qantas seeks Holy Grail of nonstop Sydney to London, New York flights by 2022.

17% is a fair bit of extra fuel, but this is how it is explained.

"the aircraft had to be equipped with adjusted fuel cut-off probes in the tanks, to reach a total fuel load of 165,000 litres (standard is 141,000l)"

Seems these adjusted probes can be readjusted back to the standard if required - to reduce operation costs based on MTOW.

20 hours in cattle class , no thanks. Even in J it would be a nightmare

//rant on...

It's 2018 and everything flying commercial is well sub-sonic. 12 hours in any ally tube is at least 8 hours too long for anybody. Is this a Big Bubba/Airslush strategy to keep more tubes in the air for longer, justifying higher prices and forcing people to upscale in comfort levels in order to avoid DVT or worse. (Think how many ambulances will be required to attend after pax have been incarcerated for 20 hours) Current aircraft are just all so last century. (Concorde excepted). I predict than the first manufacturer to get an economical SST to market will kill off the rest of the competition.

"Just stating the bleeding obvious but I feel better now"

//Rant off

IG

I have found that the long range aircraft, including B777-200LR work, provided they do what they were designed to do-Fly the furthest distance, 18 hours and more. They have a very low seat count (240) and weigh in the same as the B777-300ER (412) for landing fees, over flight fees. Unless it is flying a route that the the B777-300ER cannot, due range, then it doesn't pay to fly a 200LR. They didn't make many of these and neither did they produce many A340-500's.

No doubt the new ULR A350WB will use less gas than the A340-500 did SIN-JFK, but it would be wasting its heavy landing and overflight weights if it does anything else!

I've endured 16 + hours SFO to HKG in economy. I sure wouldn't buy a Y class seat for a 20hr flight.

rather than SST maybe these ULH planes need air-to-air refuelling, save dragging all that gas round the globe

just saying....

G

And there is a negligible OEW penalty so, subject to configuration, the ULR can operate as a standard -900.

There was the CEO of Boeing ( was it ? ) who about 15 years ago said that even if they produced an airliner that could fly half way round the world, airlines would still want it to have even more range.

A380 tanker conversions?

They can hold a bunch of gas, even more when not pressurised and gutted.
Fill 3 or 4 ULH and head back to fill up.

These ultra long flights the airlines need to adapt for the cattle class - bunk beds by the hour and paid shower even a lounge area paid per unit time.

ULR flights operate under special provisions, beyond the flight and duty tables. Not every Company needs them, unlike those that have these aircraft. We have a maximum duty time of 22 hours, and no more discretion. The thing is, the company didn't say from when the discretion actually started! This is to allow a diversion enroute, refuel and get airborne and continue. It wouldn't help having 400 people stuck in Iceland for a night, if it could be helped.

That sounds too good to be true. One possibility is that AB initially installed lousy cut-off probes. I however think that they try to sell another blunder with huge promises.
If you adjust the probes to fill the tank a little more, there are two apparent traps. First the overflow valves must be less trigger happy because i suspect that any shaking, banking, pitching would otherwise have them release too much of that precious superfill. This in itself could pose some problems with trapped gases. Second, it will be interesting to experience hot weather fuelling and subsequent mass vs. range problems. The tanks of the ME ULR aircraft pose some max fuelling problems above 36 degrees already, in the order of 2 to 5%, which leads right back to problem no1.
I know Singapore rarely gets over 33 degrees, but the targeted other big buyers airports for this new Wunderbus actually do.
As a second problem i see the MTOW. With two 4-wheel MLG there is no more increase possible (tires). The payload is already very small and thus not expandable, just as no additional aux tank. The much berated 777-200LR at least would have a comfortable margin to increase its MTOW, just as the newly offered 777X ULR.
I believe that the 350ULR will prove a tad inflexibel in daily ops when pushed to the desired range.

At the end of the day are there really enough ULR routes in the world that make these sort of 19-20 hour sectors viable. Maybe for Qantas because LHR and JFK are at the end of them but Australias not a very big place people wise and pretty insignificant globally . same with SIN-JFK, I mean Singapore the country isnt much bigger than JFK the airport.

If you have to upgrade Y -more pitch etc it means the aircraft is even more niche . So yes it means nowhere in the world is unreachable but how many really big city pairs are there longer than 12 hours ?

Sir Alan Cobham's inspiration for AAR was the idea of civilians flights around The Empire, not the military use to which it has been enthusiastically used.

You must be pretty picky if you can't entertain yourself (and sleep and eat) for 20 hours in J.

It's not rocket science. The airlines (and the manufacturers) know how many passengers currently fly between the ULR city pairs in question via hubs in Europe, ME3, Asia, etc.

By taking a view about the proportion of that traffic willing to pay a premium for direct, non-stop service on those routes, it's possible to derive the potential market for a ULR aircraft of a given size.

Of course whether that market is big enough to support one or two new types/variants remains to be seen.

https://leehamnews.com/2016/03/30/ai...-range-8100nm/

Maybe sent them a email to ask the difference in the probes and their source & design of surge tanks - as I don't know or claim to.

Wouldn't be surprised if Airbus run a couple of demonstration flights LHR-SYD (and maybe back again, which is the challenge) with this aircraft just prior to delivery to SQ.

Bang on Groundloop!

This is not news, lets put this in the nostalgia corner.

The A340-500 is not economical to operate in the niche role. The idea behind this A350ULR is that there are no huge differences to a standard A350. Let's assume the cabin is no different. The aircraft can be used on any route without penalty.

If you think there aren't enough routes for this to succeed, think about this. A small regional airport in the UK operates 3 A380s, 2 B777s and 2 787s to the Gulf, every day. That's about 3000 passengers. Others take a trip to LHR, CDG or AMS. A significant number are transiting to Australia. Given the choice, how many would take a non-stop and avoid all that messing about in London, Paris, Amsterdam, Doha, Dubai or Abu Dhabi?
I know my answer.
Bring it on !

If the aircraft was only capable of SIN-JFK, we wouldn't be having this discussion.

But it isn't (only) and we are.

Turin
I did the SIN - Newark once with SQ back in the day on the 340, and it was a long trip even when A/C as has been said was stripped to Business Class only. Not sure I would do it again unless really necessary, and as I recall there was a price premium. Also who ever said the world was getting smaller never did that hop, it seemed to go on for ever, and I have done a lot of flying in my time ! Will look forward to seeing fleet of ambulances meeting these ULH Economy passengers when they try to walk after 20hrs. I spoke with an EK cabin crew a while back about their experiences of LH economy, and they all claimed that they do have a number of people who do not move from their seat on the trips down to Aus /Nz and struggle to walk off .

Kind regards
Mr Mac

Oooooooooo!

There are dozens of DVT cases every year following long hauls. Nobody seemingly thinks seriously about it / wont happen to them....

One a month dies from DVT at Heathrow | Daily Mail Onlinel
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/hea...ur-flight.html

Here is a case that happened earlier this month on a flight from Hawaii to DFW, and that is only a 6.5 hour flight!
https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/american-airlines-passenger-died-flight-182636107.htm
About 10 years ago, I had a friend die from a DVT about 12 hours after getting off one of the non-stop Singapore - NYC flights. He was 42. I always book an aisle seat, and get up at least every 2 hours. People who sit through an entire 6+hour flight are asking for trouble.

20 hours in any airplane is too much IMHO, regardless of class!

...and what about the increased exposure to solar radiation?

IG

i really hope you are joking.

wiedehopf

I think ImageGear is "deadly" serious - skin cancer is a much higher risk for pilots than ground based workers.

"The Risk of Melanoma in Pilots and Cabin Crew: UV Measurements in Flying Airplanes"
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4476387/

Location .........................Carcinogenic Effective Irradiance, mW/m .........Time to Receive the UV-A Dose of a Tanning Bed Session, 2940 J/m, minutes
Inside tanning bed ................................2.45 ............................................................ .....................20.00
In pilot seat at 30 000 ft ........................0.87 ............................................................ .....................56.60

While not claiming to be definitive research, it would seem that every roughly every hour of flight time is the equivalent of a 20 minute tanning bed session - which are banned in most states in Australia due to their cancer inducing outcomes.
.
If I was a pilot, I would using sunscreen, sunglasses and a cap (even for short haul)

regards
layman