Friday, Aug 29, 2008
From Hong Kong to London, the long way around. The world gets smaller, again.
Nov 18, 2005 | On Nov. 10, for the first time in a while, an airplane made news for reasons other than crashing.
That plane was a Boeing 777-200LR Worldliner, the newest variant of Boeing's highly successful twin-engine wide body. The LR, if it doesn't jump out at you, is short for "long range." Living up to its moniker, a prototype Worldliner, carrying eight crew, 35 guests and 54,000 gallons of jet fuel, completed a remarkable 22-hour and 43-minute flight from Hong Kong to London. The 11,664-nautical-mile trip marks an all-time world record for distance traveled nonstop by a commercial jetliner. The folks from Guinness were on hand at the arrival ceremony for official certification.
This might seem confusing when you consider that Hong Kong-to-London nonstops are nothing new. Daily flights by British Airways and Cathay Pacific connect the two cities in a little more than 12 hours. The difference is in the flight path. A normal HKG-LHR routing, which is to say the shortest distance between the two, goes northwesterly, up through China, Kazakhstan and Russia. (Or, to quote the Associated Press' Dummies version: "Hong Kong-London flights usually fly over Russia.") Captained by Suzanna Darcy-Hennemann, a Boeing flight test pilot since 1985, the Worldliner went the long way -- not only eastbound but due east, avoiding any Great Circle shortcuts at higher latitudes. From Hong Kong, the jet crossed the northern Pacific, eventually making landfall over Los Angeles. From there it passed near Chicago and New York before traversing the Atlantic for a midafternoon arrival at London's Heathrow Airport. The plane, decked out in Boeing's spiffy blue and white house colors, touched down with more than 2,700 gallons of fuel left in its tanks.
Seven other pilots assisted Darcy-Hennemann, and no doubt she welcomed the company. Twenty-three hours aloft is prone to induce a certain circadian madness: Along the way, passengers and crew were able to witness two separate sunrises.
All very impressive, but in essence a publicity caper. Aircraft manufacturers are known to do this sort of thing now and again, setting out to break existing distance records during demo or delivery flights. Only eight years ago another 777 made media rounds after completing a 10,823-nautical-mile Seattle-Kuala Lumpur delivery flight for Malaysia Airlines. (Quibblers beware: With respect to these records, published distances between cities is not necessarily the same as mileage actually flown.) In 1993, an Airbus A340 took off from the Paris Air Show and flew 10,307 miles to Auckland, New Zealand. Back in 1976, a South African Airways 747SP made history on an 8,800-mile delivery run from Seattle to Cape Town, not surpassed until 1989, when the first 747-400 built for Qantas pulled off a slightly longer London-Sydney haul (more on that in a moment).
In nautical mileage, the Worldliner's accomplishment represents approximately half of the globe's circumference. Measured at its equatorial waist, planet Earth records 21,600 miles around. Thus, virtually any two commercial air markets in the world should now be linkable in a single fell swoop.
To wit: "Almost every major city pair on earth will be connectable with this astoundingly long-legged aircraft." That's a line from an old Ask the Pilot column, and appears in my book as well. "This amazing airplane will connect virtually any two cities in the world with nonstop service," echoed Alan Mulally, president and CEO of Boeing's commercial airplane division, at the plane's rollout party last February.
Long-haul stars like the 747-400 and A340 have been shrinking the world for decades now. Just how many city pairs, exactly, are left to claim?
The grail route, at 9,188 nautical miles, is probably London-Sydney. Don't be surprised to see the Worldliner, scheduled to enter service with Pakistan International Airlines later this winter, doing some predelivery, nonstop showboating on this route, possibly joined by its chief rival, the Airbus A340-500. Range specs for the four-engined Airbus, which entered service earlier this year with Emirates, run neck and neck with the Worldliner. For Boeing, elimination of a refueling stop along the old "Kangaroo Route" would be a major marketing coup. Already Qantas is studying the feasibility of buying and deploying 777s on England-Australia nonstops in an all-business-class configuration.
While Boeing and the airlines hash things out, bear in mind that just because a plane is able to complete a promotional stunt of more than 11,000 miles doesn't mean it can actually make such flights in scheduled commercial service. Boeing's listed data for the Worldliner show that with a maximum payload, its reach will be a more modest 9,400 miles. You also have EROPS (extended range operations) restrictions to deal with, local airspace constraints, seasonal weather variations and so on, all affecting range on a route-by-route, indeed flight-by-flight basis. London-Sydney and Sydney-London are, in a way, two very different journeys. The eastbound leg out of England is within the capabilities of existing aircraft like the A340-500. Consistent headwinds, on the other hand, make the westbound trip more challenging. In other words, it's somewhat foolish to measure an aircraft's range by a value of fixed mileage, as flight times along published routes can vary markedly. Endurance is the true determining factor.
Using a 747-400, Qantas once tinkered with the elusive Sydney-London route, and discovered it could, under optimum and fairly unpredictable conditions, make the run without having to pit-stop in Singapore or Bangkok or Bahrain. But this was so pushing the envelope that it proved a real teeth chatterer for the carrier's crews and dispatchers, who were forced to juggle the logistics of fuel, weather and diversion planning with utmost attention and accuracy. Not to mention its being untenable for advertising: "Qantas to London. Nonstop. Sometimes."
Whether or not it can close the "Kangaroo" gap, the Worldliner's capabilities are nonetheless astounding, clearing the way for pairings such as New York-Singapore at full-passenger loads and with revenue cargo down below. Many of today's longest hauls are forced to submit to payload limitations on days when headwinds are howling or the temperature soars. (Flying standby, I was once left stranded at the airport in Hong Kong while United's flight 896 to Chicago took off without me, weight restricted in deference to a temperamental jet stream.)
So, with all of this fine print in mind, the hoopla surrounding Boeing's recent aerothon doesn't terribly impress me (much as I'd have loved one of those onboard press seats the plane maker gave away for the event). I'm much more fascinated by the distance records held by active, scheduled flights. Here's a rundown of the lengthiest trips presently for sale, gauged in nautical miles:
1. New York-Singapore: 8,288 (Singapore Airlines)
2. Los Angeles-Singapore: 7,621 (Singapore Airlines)
3. New York-Bangkok: 7,525 (Thai Airways)
4. New York-Hong Kong: 7,014 (Cathay Pacific, Continental)
5. Los Angeles-Melbourne: 6,883 (Qantas)
6. Toronto-Hong Kong: 6,787 (Air Canada)
7. Chicago-Hong Kong: 6,773 (United Airlines)
8. Vancouver-Sydney: 6,741 (Air Canada)
9. Los Angeles-Sydney: 6,507 (United, Qantas)
10. Chicago-Delhi: 6,503 (American)
Note to nitpickers: Mileage tallies were computed with Karl Swartz's inimitable Great Circle Mapper, and needless to say routes are frequently swapped, dropped and restarted with short notice. Just off the list is Continental's Newark-Delhi, inaugurated earlier this month.
Nos. 1 and 2 were covered here previously and are new within the past two years. Thai Airways' JFK-Bangkok debuted last summer. Sadly absent from the list is South African Airways' JFK-Johannesburg nonstop, now discontinued. This route -- at 6,925 it would've placed fifth in the above list -- began in the 1970s with the advent of the 747SP, a short-bodied variant of the famous Boeing jumbo designed for what was then an ultra-long haul. Later, 747-400s were used. South African's flights are now one stoppers via Dakar, Senegal, using an A340.
The venerable JFK-Johannesburg was the only top tenner that I've experienced myself, on the way to Botswana in 2000. Our 747 that day was ZS-SAV, the Durban. Another book excerpt: "Total flying time was 14 hours and 46 minutes. I'm able to attest that it was exactly 14 hours and 46 minutes thanks to a digital timer bolted to the bulkhead, triggered by retraction of the landing gear to provide a minute-by-minute update. Watching the hours tick by seemed a torturous proposition until a certain passenger was bold enough to tape a piece of paper over the clock."
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