Not boaty but olewill is a just a bit excited.

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William_H

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As I write this a Boeing 787 is heading into Heath Row airport due to land at 5AM Sunday morning London time. Now this plane departed here last night at 7PM for a 17 hour flight non stop. It was loaded with 100 tonnes of Avtur (kerosene) as large part of the 247 tonne max take off weight. So this is not a jumbo jet but a twin engined jet with 236 passengers on board. Also interesting is that it is claimed 50% by weight of aircaft is composite .(carbon epoxy)
Typical fuel requirements will mean it must arrive with at least 1 hr fuel plus enough for several attempts at landing and then to travel to an alternative airport.
Now the exciting part for olewill is that it is to be a daily service from my home town of Perth then back again. So if any of my forum friends want to take advantage of this saving of several hours in travel and or a stop over just to escape UK cold weather this might be an option. There is a bit of yacht charter available here but not much. One nice little diversion is the availability of small off the beach catamarans by the hour for a bit of fun. Right opposite the CBD foreshore.
Had to put some boaty content in.
Interesting that with only 2 engines for Extended Twin Operations ETOPS operator must prove extensive experience of operation and maintenance with the engine type. The aircraft must have multiple redundancies of electrical and hydraulic systems usually provided by an additional turbine power source (used also on ground) and also an extendable Ram air turbine (wind gen to you) Australia being one of the last authorities to permit ETPOS.
olewill
 
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Sadly I am one of the masses who travel economy and the idea of being locked up for 17 hours in a rather small aluminium tube with 230 people I don't know fills me with some horror. The romance of international air travel melted aways when I started to pay for my own economy seats instead of enjoying the largesse of company funded Business or First Class.

https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2018/mar/25/my-17-hour-qantas-odyssey-in-kangaroo-pyjamas

It seems I'm not alone in my horror of economy! :(

Jonathan
 
A bit different to the 1950 era when Qantas flew Super Constellations (4 piston engine aircraft) from Sydney/Perth/Cocos Islands/ Colombo >>>> London . They had to put down on Cocos to refuel. Initially they had two men refuelers who brought their wife/ girlfriend and then there were the kids. The kids had to be educated so the school teachers came. They had a canteen so chefs, cleaners arrived. People got sick so they had to set up a nursing post. Eventually they ended up with over 100 people (140 springs to mind) on the island to refuel two aircraft per week!

PS I flew Perth /Johannesburg which is 11 hours flight time over water (quite daunting) The Air traffic regulators will only allow 4 engine jets on that route for safety reasons.(That's a worry!)
 
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My first ever flight was on a Qantas Super Constellation, from Singapore to London. I guess the flight originated somewhere in Oz. We had a little excitement on the first leg to Calcutta; two engines on the same wing flamed out and we landed on just the two remaining. After a couple of days for repairs we then set off for London, stopping IIRC at Karachi and Rome. Bit more than 17 hours in total......
 
Neeves said:
Sadly I am one of the masses who travel economy and the idea of being locked up for 17 hours in a rather small aluminium tube with 230 people I don't know fills me with some horror. The romance of international air travel melted aways when I started to pay for my own economy seats instead of enjoying the largesse of company funded Business or First Class.

https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2018/mar/25/my-17-hour-qantas-odyssey-in-kangaroo-pyjamas

It seems I'm not alone in my horror of economy! :(

Jonathan
Click to expand...

Its not the 230 other people that I can't stand, its the fact that both Boeing and Airbus appear to have installed a howling baby as a standard fitting on every plane, and its nearly always within one row of me.
 
Resolution said:
:cool:
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Well unusually in this case not much chance of luggage being misdirected. The domestic terminal at Perth has been divided for this single service as an international departure and arrivals section. This was forced by Qantas to cope with the aircraft doing the domestic leg Sydney to Perth then on to LHR. Presumably the hold is emptied at LHR for the same a/c heads back to Perth. Can't be quite so sure for return flight.
Anyway regarding 17hrs locked in an aircraft that is what it takes to escape European winter. olewill
 
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