APYu wrote:

Probably worth remembering that these 'sunrise' services may never happen. All of this research and proving is feeding into the decision whether to even bother with these services and I believe a decision is due early 2020.Theres lots of post which suggests these services are a certainty, but while I think they are highly likely, any factor such as a dip in the economy would result in these ideas being shelved for another few years.

I’d say the direct New York service is going ahead now that NZ will launch direct AKL-EWR services from Oct 2020.


https://www.airnewzealand.co.nz/press-r ... al-network

As always NZ a so called end of the line carrier has beaten QF to Chicago & now New York.


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moa999 wrote:

6 hrs later for midday departure for a 6am arrival, or evening/lunchtime would make most sense

That's Zulu time, it arrives at 11:45 AEDT. I still don't believe that the block time is 18h45m. I think this is most likely just an internet rumour doing the rounds or, if it is from Qantas, not a final schedule and will definitely be changed.

But I agree that the fatigue testing is going to be a lot less relevant if they are using a schedule that looks nothing like the actual schedule they would use in service.

Sam Chui will be on the flight and posted his invite to his Instagram story. It confirms 6am departure and 12pm arrival, at what they say is approximately 19.5 hours.

I agree that you'd think the testing would resemble the proposed schedule so this is a bit odd.

EK413 wrote:

APYu wrote:

Probably worth remembering that these 'sunrise' services may never happen. All of this research and proving is feeding into the decision whether to even bother with these services and I believe a decision is due early 2020.Theres lots of post which suggests these services are a certainty, but while I think they are highly likely, any factor such as a dip in the economy would result in these ideas being shelved for another few years.

I’d say the direct New York service is going ahead now that NZ will launch direct AKL-EWR services from Oct 2020.


https://www.airnewzealand.co.nz/press-r ... al-network

As always NZ a so called end of the line carrier has beaten QF to Chicago & now New York.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

If New Yorks a go ahead, then so is london. Qantas isn't going to buy a fleet of two aircraft.

Also, Qantas doesn't have much pressure to compete with ANZ on New York as they already have QF11 which, IMHO, works just as well as any direct flight would.

What I'm interested in is how is this LHR-SYD flight handled from a slot management point of view. 0600 is quite a busy time for LHR where exactly is this slot coming from? Does Heathrow hold a pool of slots for irregular movements?

HM7 wrote:

EK413 wrote:

APYu wrote:

Probably worth remembering that these 'sunrise' services may never happen. All of this research and proving is feeding into the decision whether to even bother with these services and I believe a decision is due early 2020.Theres lots of post which suggests these services are a certainty, but while I think they are highly likely, any factor such as a dip in the economy would result in these ideas being shelved for another few years.

I’d say the direct New York service is going ahead now that NZ will launch direct AKL-EWR services from Oct 2020.


https://www.airnewzealand.co.nz/press-r ... al-network

As always NZ a so called end of the line carrier has beaten QF to Chicago & now New York.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

If New Yorks a go ahead, then so is london. Qantas isn't going to buy a fleet of two aircraft.

Also, Qantas doesn't have much pressure to compete with ANZ on New York as they already have QF11 which, IMHO, works just as well as any direct flight would.

I’m well aware and I wouldn’t say the current arrangement works smoothly. A good day it might but the days where either QF93, QF11, or QF15 in particular delayed the LAX-JFK-LAX leg is left in jeopardy.




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jsfr wrote:

EK413 wrote:

Update on the next PS research flight

Thursday 7/11
QF6027 PAE 2100z LAX 2335z
Pre service checks

Wednesday 13/11
QF6027 LAX 0740z LHR 1820z

Thursday 14/11
QF7879 LHR 0600z SYD 0045z

Friday 15/11
QF6101 SYD 2300z MEL 0035z




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Not sure how those timings could possibly be relevant for testing much of anything to do with jet-lag or ULR flights in general?

Those are absolutely awful times.. a 0600 departure means arrival at the airport at 0500 (absolute latest) probably out of bed around 0300/0330 depending on where you live... that means most pax would already be absolutely wiped already before the flight and absolutely not in a normal pre-ULH condition....

I do EUR-OZ every year and would definitely do a non-stop, but the arrival and departure times are everything for me to make sure I am functional and I would never choose those times....

Did you miss the little "z"? It means Zule time or UTC NOT local time! It's what airlines run on except it gets translated for passenger/public purposes.

Gemuser

Gemuser wrote:

jsfr wrote:

EK413 wrote:

Update on the next PS research flight

Thursday 7/11
QF6027 PAE 2100z LAX 2335z
Pre service checks

Wednesday 13/11
QF6027 LAX 0740z LHR 1820z

Thursday 14/11
QF7879 LHR 0600z SYD 0045z

Friday 15/11
QF6101 SYD 2300z MEL 0035z




Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Not sure how those timings could possibly be relevant for testing much of anything to do with jet-lag or ULR flights in general?

Those are absolutely awful times.. a 0600 departure means arrival at the airport at 0500 (absolute latest) probably out of bed around 0300/0330 depending on where you live... that means most pax would already be absolutely wiped already before the flight and absolutely not in a normal pre-ULH condition....

I do EUR-OZ every year and would definitely do a non-stop, but the arrival and departure times are everything for me to make sure I am functional and I would never choose those times....

Did you miss the little "z"? It means Zule time or UTC NOT local time! It's what airlines run on except it gets translated for passenger/public purposes.

Gemuser

Which still makes doors close on the LHR-SYD leg at 0600L departure...

DeltaB717 wrote:

Which still makes doors close on the LHR-SYD leg at 0600L departure...

Exactly. From Sunday...Z = London.

benjjk wrote:

Sam Chui will be on the flight and posted his invite to his Instagram story. It confirms 6am departure and 12pm arrival, at what they say is approximately 19.5 hours.

I agree that you'd think the testing would resemble the proposed schedule so this is a bit odd.

A 12:00 AEDT arrival is still only 19 hours gate-to-gate, so something like 18h45m in the air assuming no departure delay at LHR. There is an inconsistency here somewhere.

Edit: contrary to what I said yesterday, I am starting to wonder if Qantas actually have missed the fact that daylight saving ends in the UK this weekend, and have planned the schedule based on the current time difference. Based on current time it would be 20 hours gate-to-gate which makes more sense. This is horrendously embarrassing if this is the case.

Edit to my edit: They can't have done since they used Zulu time. "British Summer Time" as they insist on calling it there is Z+1, so they have based the departure on non-daylight time.

bcworld wrote:

DeltaB717 wrote:

Which still makes doors close on the LHR-SYD leg at 0600L departure...

Exactly. From Sunday...Z = London.

Not really, z = UTC, [what used to be called GMT], daylight saving time is irrelevent; in fact in summer London time is UTC +1 but z time does not change.

Gemuser

smi0006 wrote:

DIRECTFLT wrote:

Qantas Completes Record-Breaking 19-Hour Marathon Flight | NBC Nightly News

Australian airline Qantas broke the record for longest non-stop commercial passenger flight this weekend, a 19-hour and 16-minute journey from New York to Sydney. Tom Costello was the only American journalist onboard during the flight; he shows how the 49 test subjects alongside him fought jet lag during their journey.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJcRBJ3k3_8

What a 19-Hour Nonstop Flight Can Teach Us About Jet Lag | WSJ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLmYzJjwWr0

What constitutes a commercial flight? Hasn’t QF flown a 744 LHR-SYD non stop already? Along with a 332 TLS-SYD? Surely these would have counted too- not as if any of the passengers actually played for their tickets?

Technically JFK-SYD was a charter flight, as stated below



https://twitter.com/Airlineroute/status ... 60577?s=20

From an interview Alan Joyce gave Routes Online... Hoping for nonstops from 2023 not just to JFK & LHR but other North American and European cities too.

vhqpa wrote:

What I'm interested in is how is this LHR-SYD flight handled from a slot management point of view. 0600 is quite a busy time for LHR where exactly is this slot coming from? Does Heathrow hold a pool of slots for irregular movements?

Shouldn’t have a problem taking OFF from LHR at that time. Most aircraft are arriving then. They’ll squeeze it out somehow.

benjjk wrote:

Sam Chui will be on the flight and posted his invite to his Instagram story.

One of the most delusional 'influencers', everything is The Best Ever and does anybody really think that avgeeks watching a highly staged YouTube video are the target audience for buying business class? I would LOVE to see a journalist on one of these 'research' flights choose to downgrade himself from business to economy, recline the seat in front and file an honest report on the whole experience, but I suggest that Qantas would not want that!!!

Alan Joyce: Project Sunrise jets will have new 'super first class' suites and also extra legroom in economy. About time!

https://www.executivetraveller.com/news ... my-legroom

Not because he wants to, but because he has to.

RickNRoll wrote:

Not because he wants to, but because he has to.

Unless regulators explicitly demand more room per pax for these flights, I fail to see why un-densifying each class is necessary.

The best way to take advantage of potential premium demand on these routes is to fit more premium seats, not make each seat more premium/hog more space. It is highly unlikely that the pricing premium would be worth the 2-3 row deficit in number of seats on an aircraft such as an A35K.

JustSomeDood wrote:

RickNRoll wrote:

Not because he wants to, but because he has to.

Unless regulators explicitly demand more room per pax for these flights, I fail to see why un-densifying each class is necessary.

The best way to take advantage of potential premium demand on these routes is to fit more premium seats, not make each seat more premium/hog more space.

The aircraft will already be premium heavy, much like the QF 787s but there is a limit to premium demand in Australia

moa999 wrote:

JustSomeDood wrote:

RickNRoll wrote:

Not because he wants to, but because he has to.

Unless regulators explicitly demand more room per pax for these flights, I fail to see why un-densifying each class is necessary.

The best way to take advantage of potential premium demand on these routes is to fit more premium seats, not make each seat more premium/hog more space.

The aircraft will already be premium heavy, much like the QF 787s but there is a limit to premium demand in Australia

Given the fundamental economics of project sunrise routes, if the premium demand is not enough to profitably fill 100++ premium seats up front consistently (A380 has 113/144, 787 has 70) the routes just won't make money because Y isn't gonna garner the gigantic premiums necessary to compete against the one-stops.

JustSomeDood wrote:

moa999 wrote:

JustSomeDood wrote:

Unless regulators explicitly demand more room per pax for these flights, I fail to see why un-densifying each class is necessary.

The best way to take advantage of potential premium demand on these routes is to fit more premium seats, not make each seat more premium/hog more space.

The aircraft will already be premium heavy, much like the QF 787s but there is a limit to premium demand in Australia

Given the fundamental economics of project sunrise routes, if the premium demand is not enough to profitably fill 100++ premium seats up front consistently (A380 has 113/144, 787 has 70) the routes just won't make money because Y isn't gonna garner the gigantic premiums necessary to compete against the one-stops.

What premiums?

Fred

Qantas says it will recruit up to 400 pilots plus provide significant promotional opportunities for existing staff as it tries to head off pilot concerns about Project Sunrise. Qantas wants pilots to accept the 787 pay and conditions for either planned aircraft (A350/777X) but says this doesn't include annual pay increases under a yet to be agreed EBA. Currently for 2019 a 787 line pilot gets paid (including super and allowances) $445,000 per year while a first officer is paid just over $300,000 and a second officer a little over $150,000

Pilots are concerned about fatigue and also argue the timeline Qantas wants is unrealistic. Qantas says both Boeing and Airbus wont hold slots for ever plus Qantas requires those working on Project Sunrise to move to domestic fleet renewal in 2020.

https://www.airlineratings.com/news/qan ... ng-pilots/

The second delivery/research flight will depart LHR at 0600 on Thursday 14 November, arriving into SYD at 1145 Friday. The aircraft will be VH-ZNJ, wearing the special 100 year livery.

benjjk wrote:

The second delivery/research flight will depart LHR at 0600 on Thursday 14 November, arriving into SYD at 1145 Friday. The aircraft will be VH-ZNJ, wearing the special 100 year livery.

Any idea when it's scheduled to arrive at LHR from LAX?

scbriml wrote:

benjjk wrote:

The second delivery/research flight will depart LHR at 0600 on Thursday 14 November, arriving into SYD at 1145 Friday. The aircraft will be VH-ZNJ, wearing the special 100 year livery.

Any idea when it's scheduled to arrive at LHR from LAX?

Apparently it's due in Wednesday at 1820, after leaving LAX at 2340.

scbriml wrote:

Any idea when it's scheduled to arrive at LHR from LAX?

1820 local on Wednesday:

QF6027 12/11 LAX 2340 : 1820 LHR 13/11

musman9853 wrote:

so probably only a few test runs, right? because no way you can make money off 40 pax

They are testing with 40 employees per flight, not paying passengers. You cannot sell tickets on a test flight. Also employees will have heart monitors & blood pressure checks among other random checks after the flight.

benjjk wrote:

scbriml wrote:

benjjk wrote:

The second delivery/research flight will depart LHR at 0600 on Thursday 14 November, arriving into SYD at 1145 Friday. The aircraft will be VH-ZNJ, wearing the special 100 year livery.

Any idea when it's scheduled to arrive at LHR from LAX?

Apparently it's due in Wednesday at 1820, after leaving LAX at 2340.

Thanks. I can see it’s on its way now.

https://fr24.com/QFA6027/22d32420

Sam Chui has covered the details on the upcoming Qantas London to Sydney test flight. I believe he'll be on board to cover it so that will be interesting.

https://samchui.com/2019/11/13/qantas-p ... cv2C1czaUk

Not the biggest fan of his videos but he's got some interesting details in his blog post.

RickNRoll wrote:

After all this time, they now decide that they are going to test if the concept is even viable. Something wrong with their planning somewhere. If they decide it's not viable, do they just apologise to Boeing and Airbus for wasting their time?

Perhaps.

Another airline would probably offer a flight with a three hour stop in Istanbul with access to shower and lounge plus ameneties for 300 $ cheaper.

Just kidding.

Edit, Misread, please remove.

Fred

rbavfan wrote:

They are testing with 40 employees per flight, not paying passengers. You cannot sell tickets on a test flight. Also employees will have heart monitors & blood pressure checks among other random checks after the flight.

Hopefully those 40 employees are sitting in economy... Easy enough to do the trip in Business/First, but crammed in economy is the true test!

flipdewaf wrote:

JustSomeDood wrote:

Given the fundamental economics of project sunrise routes, if the premium demand is not enough to profitably fill 100++ premium seats up front consistently (A380 has 113/144, 787 has 70) the routes just won't make money because Y isn't gonna garner the gigantic premiums necessary to compete against the one-stops.

What premiums?

Fred

I assume the total fuel consumption per passenger will be bigger than with a stopover, there is only one take off instead of two but on the other hand the fuel tanks must be filled to the brim (plus maybe an extra canister in the cockpit ) and there is a penalty for carrying all that fuel.

Provided that assumption is correct - To pay for that extra fuel the tickets have to be more expensive than for flights with a stopover.

Lingon wrote:

flipdewaf wrote:

JustSomeDood wrote:

Given the fundamental economics of project sunrise routes, if the premium demand is not enough to profitably fill 100++ premium seats up front consistently (A380 has 113/144, 787 has 70) the routes just won't make money because Y isn't gonna garner the gigantic premiums necessary to compete against the one-stops.

What premiums?

Fred

I assume the total fuel consumption per passenger will be bigger than with a stopover, there is only one take off instead of two but on the other hand the fuel tanks must be filled to the brim (plus maybe an extra canister in the cockpit ) and there is a penalty for carrying all that fuel.

Provided that assumption is correct - To pay for that extra fuel the tickets have to be more expensive than for flights with a stopover.

But a stopover requires some fuel for landing and takeoff, increased time for the airframe, the crew, the engines, extra cycles for the Frame, gear and engines, landing/navigational fees.

Imagine the utilisation numbers that QF will get on frames doing SYD/MEL-LHR/JFK
20hrs flying - 2 hrs turn 20hrs flying 6 hrs turn...

Fred

I think undoubtedly more fuel, but pax are willing to pay for the convenience of not having the stop, and the procedure of prepping for landing, immigration, security, reboarding etc, all of which takes 3-4 hours.

There are 20+ airports and airlines in a triangle from Jakarta to Beijing and Instanbul that can provide a 1-stop Kangaroo route.
Only a few can ever do a direct service.

Flightplan for QF7879 LHR-SYD







https://twitter.com/keg767/status/11948 ... 24577?s=21

Holy eff, that’s almost on the other side of the world from LHR (exact spot is somewhere around New Zealand, IIRC).

How mans tonnes of carbon will be added to the atmosphere just for the Qantas marketing machine? QF already do one of the longest flights in the world. They have all the data they need.

qf789 wrote:

Flightplan for QF7879 LHR-SYD







https://twitter.com/keg767/status/11948 ... 24577?s=21

Thanks QF, interesting stuff. A couple of things that can be read from the flight plan:

- MTOW is not a factor, they are more than 20T below.

- payload is around 4-5 Tonnes (can’t tell the exact number without knowing the DOW, but should be around 127T). This is consistent with 40 Pax on board

- Takeoff fuel is 99 Tonnes. That’s ~2T below the max capacity

- est. arrival fuel is 7 Tonnes. That’s a fairly decent amount

- est. flight time is 19:17

- Cost Index 60 is fairly high, meaning they fly relatively fast (I expect M.85)

- they have 20 knots of tailwind

With these numbers, I expect they could take 3-4 more Tonnes of payload, to complete the mission with full tanks and keep similar reserves on landing. Plus another 2 Tonnes if they were less conservative with reserves (eg using RCF, no dest. alternate). I guess up to 100PAX in these conditions would be doable.

flipdewaf wrote:

Lingon wrote:

I assume the total fuel consumption per passenger will be bigger than with a stopover, there is only one take off instead of two but on the other hand the fuel tanks must be filled to the brim (plus maybe an extra canister in the cockpit ) and there is a penalty for carrying all that fuel.

Provided that assumption is correct - To pay for that extra fuel the tickets have to be more expensive than for flights with a stopover.

But a stopover requires some fuel for landing and takeoff, increased time for the airframe, the crew, the engines, extra cycles for the Frame, gear and engines, landing/navigational fees.

Imagine the utilisation numbers that QF will get on frames doing SYD/MEL-LHR/JFK
20hrs flying - 2 hrs turn 20hrs flying 6 hrs turn...

Fred

Yes, I honestly don't know what has the bigger impact financially. What I base my assumption on was an old graph I saw with fuel consumption per seat and mile for a 777 depending on flown distance. For a short hop, the fuel consumption of course was very high, it sank to a minimum at some optimal distance and at the end of the range of the plane it was almost back to the same as for a short hop; that distance was a bit past double the optimum.
And the differences were significant.
That graph gave me the idea that two six hour legs would be cheaper than one twelve hour leg. The extra fuel for the take-off and landing didn't matter, the graph took the complete flight into consideration (but I don't know what taxi time assumptions were included). I have no idea how much the extra wear would rebalance the comparison.
Now we are talking about two nine or ten hour legs versus one eighteen or twenty hour leg, so I am curious to know how the numbers pan out. But I still suspect the stopover will be cheaper.
OTH, the financial outcome also depends on what people are willing to pay. If I indeed am wrong and it is cheaper to fly the 18 h leg and you can charge more for the tickets, it seems weird that a decision would take so long.

Lingon wrote:

flipdewaf wrote:

Lingon wrote:

I assume the total fuel consumption per passenger will be bigger than with a stopover, there is only one take off instead of two but on the other hand the fuel tanks must be filled to the brim (plus maybe an extra canister in the cockpit ) and there is a penalty for carrying all that fuel.

Provided that assumption is correct - To pay for that extra fuel the tickets have to be more expensive than for flights with a stopover.

But a stopover requires some fuel for landing and takeoff, increased time for the airframe, the crew, the engines, extra cycles for the Frame, gear and engines, landing/navigational fees.

Imagine the utilisation numbers that QF will get on frames doing SYD/MEL-LHR/JFK
20hrs flying - 2 hrs turn 20hrs flying 6 hrs turn...

Fred

Yes, I honestly don't know what has the bigger impact financially. What I base my assumption on was an old graph I saw with fuel consumption per seat and mile for a 777 depending on flown distance. For a short hop, the fuel consumption of course was very high, it sank to a minimum at some optimal distance and at the end of the range of the plane it was almost back to the same as for a short hop; that distance was a bit past double the optimum.
And the differences were significant.
That graph gave me the idea that two six hour legs would be cheaper than one twelve hour leg. The extra fuel for the take-off and landing didn't matter, the graph took the complete flight into consideration (but I don't know what taxi time assumptions were included). I have no idea how much the extra wear would rebalance the comparison.
Now we are talking about two nine or ten hour legs versus one eighteen or twenty hour leg, so I am curious to know how the numbers pan out. But I still suspect the stopover will be cheaper.
OTH, the financial outcome also depends on what people are willing to pay. If I indeed am wrong and it is cheaper to fly the 18 h leg and you can charge more for the tickets, it seems weird that a decision would take so long.

I ran some numbers through my model/simulation using almost equal legs from SYD-LHR (picked an airport somewhere in china) and the A350-1000 in total used about $5k less fuel for the two 1/2 legs vs the single long leg. The reality of the 2 "half" legs is that:
a. They aren't actually ever half + half, (lets call it 0.5+0.5) but they are split 0.6+0.4 (or something like)
b. The stop is unlikley to be on the optimal path (GC route in non wind conditions) so the length of the flight will be longer so we are now at a 0.5+0.6 situation
c. The wind varies (like any route) but a very long route will be able to take advantage of the winds more readily than the shorter routes however if you have decided that you are stopping in HKG or SIN then that's where you are stopping and unlikely you can change then the advantage you can take from the wind (or the disadvantage to be reduced) is reduced to that available form the two single routes. so the one stop can easily become a 0.55+0.6.

The advantages of a stop over are the ability to carry a heavier payload, the ability to potentially use a less capable (less expensive) aircraft.

The advantages of a connecting system (i.e. BA15 is a 1 stop and not a connecting flight) is the network optimization and allows you to fill planes more readily.

Fred

Would I be correct is assuming that Qantas does not have any Russian over-flight rights? They used to operate HKG-MEL so there is a chance they do.

The reason I ask is that I wouldn't be surprised if in certain conditions it was more efficient to fly over Russia and down over Japan. Chinese airspace is chronically inefficient, as can be seen in the above image with the dogs-leg through China.

RyanairGuru wrote:

Would I be correct is assuming that Qantas does not have any Russian over-flight rights? They used to operate HKG-MEL so there is a chance they do.

The reason I ask is that I wouldn't be surprised if in certain conditions it was more efficient to fly over Russia and down over Japan. Chinese airspace is chronically inefficient, as can be seen in the above image with the dogs-leg through China.

Why would QF or any airline for that matter need Russian overflight rights to operate HKG-MEL? HKG is quite a ways south of Russia.

77H

flipdewaf wrote:

[ ran some numbers through my model/simulation ...

Thank you, this was very interesting!

I flew QF1 last year and we overflew Russia. The routing took us over the Caspian sea, making landfall near Astrakhan, overflying Volgograd before crossing into Belorussian airspace. At least 90 minutes in Russian Airspace

https://flightaware.com/live/flight/QFA1/history/20181113/1605Z/WSSS/EGLL

77H wrote:

RyanairGuru wrote:

Would I be correct is assuming that Qantas does not have any Russian over-flight rights? They used to operate HKG-MEL so there is a chance they do.

The reason I ask is that I wouldn't be surprised if in certain conditions it was more efficient to fly over Russia and down over Japan. Chinese airspace is chronically inefficient, as can be seen in the above image with the dogs-leg through China.

Why would QF or any airline for that matter need Russian overflight rights to operate HKG-MEL? HKG is quite a ways south of Russia.

77H

I assume they meant that they used to fly LHR-HKG-MEL... given that they still do fly HKG-MEL!

flipdewaf wrote:

I ran some numbers through my model/simulation using almost equal legs from SYD-LHR (picked an airport somewhere in china) and the A350-1000 in total used about $5k less fuel for the two 1/2 legs vs the single long leg.

That looks about right. I made a quick and dirty FCOM calculation for the 789 and the difference between a non-stop flight and with a stop half way is approximately 7 Tonnes, or approximately $4-5k. The burn penalty is about 10% of the total fuel required.

That’s not a lot of you factor in the landing fees at the intermediate airport hotels for the extra set of crew etc.

The biggest difference would be payload capability. You can take waaay more payload with an intermediate stop, compared to the non-stop sector.

thepinkmachine wrote:

The biggest difference would be payload capability. You can take waaay more payload with an intermediate stop, compared to the non-stop sector.

Very true, if you go the full route you take a very premium low loaded cabin. If you go for two 'half' legs then you basically can go at full structural payload, Fuel takes a double whammy hit if you do that though.

For me the interesting bit about these sunrise flights isn't so much about the capability or the fuel burn or the timings but once you have all the numbers someone has to put their knob and the block and say "we're going to do it like this!" We live in a world where people always just want another test or an extra bit of surety and it takes more guts than many people give credit for to trust the people you employ to get the information correct and make the choice.

Fred

sevenair wrote:

How mans tonnes of carbon will be added to the atmosphere just for the Qantas marketing machine? QF already do one of the longest flights in the world. They have all the data they need.

I am getting sick of these types of comments! READ the thread, I know its large but if you haven't you don't know enough to comment.
These flights are mainly about crew fatigue. Up thread it is stated that the two universities actually conducting the fatigue studies have mathmatical models of how changing factors affect fatigue. These tests are required by CASA to satisfy them that those models are valid before they will even consider any changes to law, regs, orders and operational manuals of any type that maybe required.. They will also be a major factor in convincing the tech crew that the flights can be operated.
All this is standard scientific method & procedures and it is unfair to brand it "marketing". If they donot get CASA's approval to extend crew duty times Project Sunrise will NOT go ahead.

Gemuser

From 6 stops 55 hours to non-stop 19 hours is a major achivement for aviation technology. I am guessing in near future there will be a electric hybrid doing multiple hop/day trip on same route.