737 Range
 

This morning, around 10:10 a 737NG-800 left Lasham looking very nice as it passed overhead my house. I thought I would follow it to see where it may be going. As far as I can see, it is still going 4 hours later and is over the middle of Russia, nearing a place called Surgut. At a guess, that must be around 4,000 miles. Is that a record for a 737NG, particularly one that has been in storage since February? The reg is EI-FNU, using call sign TAY286E.

It may be a record if it has done 4000 miles in 4 hours.

Tailwind. :O

Joking aside, it has been airborne for 6 hours, and is currently over Novosibirsk, about 2,775 nm from Lasham. That's an average groundspeed of 462.5 kts, not exactly record-breaking.

It's descending now, hard to say yet where its intended destination is.

First of all the lighter the aircraft then the less runway it needs and whilst Lasham's runway may not be so long this aircraft would have been light, without any B737-800 performance data to hand 6 hours does sound pretty imaginable but then perhaps the Russians had a standard issue pencil sharpener to hand!

P.S. That said a fully laden B737-300 could make it off BRS's 6,600ft runway 4.5hrs to LCA so an empty -800 off Lasham's 5,900ft runway for 6hrs isn't so unrealistic

Thanks for the replies. I was in a rush to go to the shops and should have looked a little more closely at the distance. Pinching the finger and thumb together, squinting and guessing doesn't always work!
The idea of 6 hours just seemed so atypical of a 737 flight. As for aircraft at Lasham, I have seen, some years ago, 707, A300 757 etc going in and out of there. It can be a rude awakening when this almighty noise begins and a look out of the window shows something the size of a 707 just a couple of thousand feet above! Sadly, there doesn't seem to be as much traffic in and out of Lasham these days (even pre-Covid).

It's a former Air Italy machine intended for TNT, so it won't have much in the way of interior furnishings and it's unlikely to be carrying a revenue payload out of Lasham.

It has just landed at Novosibirsk, in fact, so that's a tad under 3,000 nm - not particularly taxing for a B738 at those weights.

Thanks again Dave. I guess I was overcome with excitement at seeing an aeroplane at relatively low level after all these weeks of blank skies!

I would imagine it is going to Jinan for a freight door conversion.

Ryanair's several hundred 737-800s have virtually all been delivered from Boeing Field to Dublin, non-stop, which is about 4,000 nautical miles.

Lots of 737-800s operate between Seattle and Florida or Seattle to the Hawaiian Islands fully loaded - close to 6 hours/3,000 miles - fully loaded.

An Ethiopian Airlines 737-800 flew an ADD-LHR return a few weeks back and that's about 3,700miles each way. I seem to remember that the now defunct Astraeus Airlines flew 737's on long niche routes.

We managed to get 737-800s directly from Boeing Field to Berlin, that is a tad over 5.000 NM. Not every time of course, it depended heavily on the wind situation.

With a full passenger load (186 passengers) we flew TXL-DXB, around a six hour sector with roughly 2.500 NM which was at the limit of the range. The -700 could have gone on for longer.

Astraeus flew from Bristol to Banjul with the 737-700 if memory serves. Around 6 hours block time.

Turkish Airlines operate a lot of long 737 flights to the African continent too

I’ve been fortunate enough to do Boeing Field to Manchester in 8hr 50min and to Gatwick in 9hr 20min, empty obviously.

we often fly back from The Red Sea areas of Egypt, full, into the winter headwinds taking over 6 hours. That’s pretty much taking off at max take off mass.

That’s an 800Ng, the -8 can do even more!

Not at the moment!

Astreaus also did Gatwick - Malabo. Direct track 2872 nm. Took something over 7 hours. 700 series