Primarily for general aviation discussion, but other aviation topics are also welcome.
#1644447
BehyBill wrote:Can I ask how many meals they serve on that flight?

Just a side comment don't underestimate how tough life in Liverpool :lol:


[ I enjoyed Liverpool, my first ' home' town in UK after nomadic childhood :) ]

ISTR from article about the new service: it was Business and Premium Economy only. Premium Economy got 3 meals at fixed times. Business could get meals whenever they wanted.

I assume crews, both flights deck and cabin, were completely duplicated, with appropriate bunks for off duty ones; so not exactly "20+ hours duty". ISTR reading about inaugural Qantas Perth-London nonstop 787 (17 h) having 4 pilots, and presumed equivalent cabin crew. Even on the 1-stop London Sydney services, typically 12+8 or 8+12 ish hours depending on stopover place, the 12h flights seem to have change of Captain making announcements and of cabin crew between beginning and end.

Oh, and of course, both 787 and A350 have Gloucestershire undercarriage :thumright:

(.. and, to trump Lefty, I have not only worked and flown at Goose but flown South into Thule :) )
BehyBill, GeorgeJLA liked this
#1644521
I did the old version of this flight a couple of times before SQ stopped it as being uneconomic. Back then it was done in an A340 with 100 seats all business class, so I guess the A350 and different seat layout make it viable again. The actual route varied slightly each time, once on the great circle over the north pole but also once eastbound from Singapore quite a long way south, over Japan then central Alaska and northern Canada. I think there were 3 main meal services which left time for 3 movies, a bit of work and a sleep! A couple of screenshots as we approached Singapore on the eastbound flight, this was August 2012. This flight left Newark on Thursday night and arrived in Singapore on Saturday morning...

Image
Image
Iceman liked this
#1644573
kanga wrote:I assume crews, both flights deck and cabin, were completely duplicated, with appropriate bunks for off duty ones; so not exactly "20+ hours duty". ISTR reading about inaugural Qantas Perth-London nonstop 787 (17 h) having 4 pilots, and presumed equivalent cabin crew. Even on the 1-stop London Sydney services, typically 12+8 or 8+12 ish hours depending on stopover place, the 12h flights seem to have change of Captain making announcements and of cabin crew between beginning and end.


There will be 4 pilots on the flight, that’s true, but if you’re at work, you’re performing a duty. The regulations allow in-flight rest to extend a duty period but you are not off duty in that time. The legal maximum duty under EASA is 18 hours with 4 pilots so I imagine the regs they operate under are more permissive (read knackering). Their duty will start say 90 minutes before departure. Even if they split the operation so those who aren’t operating at the controls for takeoff do the landing your quality of rest in the bunk on the flight will be rubbish, followed by 8 hours at the controls before landing. It’s seriously tiring whatever way you cut it. That assumes the timing of the flight and your normal circadian rhythm allow you to sleep properly in the bunk in the first place.
kanga, AshleyFlynn23 liked this
#1648255
We did LHR to Santiago Chile last year. Not as long but even with the lay flat beds it was quite a journey. Then we had to fly 3 hrs in Chile, then over night, then to Mount Pleasant. At the end of that we hardly felt rested.

In a couple of weeks we are flying RAF to Mount Pleasant. It's a much shorter journey. But I haven't been able to get confirmation of the lay flat beds! We stop in Cape Verde this time. So we won't be tankering so much fuel, Genghis can relax. Indeed the flights will be much shorter duration in total.
#1648263
Just as a matter of interest, if you're flying a Long Range trip on Emirates EK, and wonder why the pilots look knackered!
The FTLs in Dubai do not count Crew Rest on an augmented crew as Duty. So the monthly flying limit of 90/100 hrs does not include the possible substantial extra hours on the plane while resting. Illegal in EASA etc.
No wonder the crews complain of being constantly fatigued.



Josh wrote:
kanga wrote:I assume crews, both flights deck and cabin, were completely duplicated, with appropriate bunks for off duty ones; so not exactly "20+ hours duty". ISTR reading about inaugural Qantas Perth-London nonstop 787 (17 h) having 4 pilots, and presumed equivalent cabin crew. Even on the 1-stop London Sydney services, typically 12+8 or 8+12 ish hours depending on stopover place, the 12h flights seem to have change of Captain making announcements and of cabin crew between beginning and end.


There will be 4 pilots on the flight, that’s true, but if you’re at work, you’re performing a duty. The regulations allow in-flight rest to extend a duty period but you are not off duty in that time. The legal maximum duty under EASA is 18 hours with 4 pilots so I imagine the regs they operate under are more permissive (read knackering). Their duty will start say 90 minutes before departure. Even if they split the operation so those who aren’t operating at the controls for takeoff do the landing your quality of rest in the bunk on the flight will be rubbish, followed by 8 hours at the controls before landing. It’s seriously tiring whatever way you cut it. That assumes the timing of the flight and your normal circadian rhythm allow you to sleep properly in the bunk in the first place.
#1649039
Genghis ,
Sorry to be pedantic . It's not ' tankering ' in the accepted meaning of the word .
Tankering is carrying extra fuel to minimise or eliminate fuel uplift at your turnaround station . Due to expensive fuel , lack of , contract , technical etc. Normally up to a maximum of round-trip . You do this in your car every day .
Looking at the route , and trying to remember ETOPS rules from 18 yrs ago . It's likely that they arrive at EWR with no more fuel than if they've flown in from JFK .
It's also likely that their en route fuel burn is approx 1/2 what it was with an A340-500 and reserve fuel carried would be about 1/2 as well. Not to mention GHGs .
Josh has it right 'tho . 747-400 is a lovely a/c ; but fuel tanks much too big . SIN-LHR , not for me after the first , would have been much better on Aberdeen ABZ - Shetland LSI .

rgds condor .
avtur3 liked this
#1649047
I do do it in my car every day, you're quite right.

But w.r.t. aircraft, this does seem to me to be an appropriate use of the term. most analysis shows the optimal use of large aeroplanes, from the perspective of fuel burn per passenger mile, to be around 3,000mile legs. Clearly some routes (LHR-JFK to pick a really obvious one) have no choice but to fly longer legs - but to fly massively longer legs pushes the per-pax-mile fuel burn enormously.

This is of-course why it's much cheaper to change flights and fly, say, LHR-DFW-LAX than direct LHR-LAX. But in this time of ever increasing concerns about the environment, I think that it's entirely appropriate to be concerned about proposals for ultra-long distance flights where you're not just paying in dollars to save few hours on the ground, you're paying in carbon footprint as well.

I know this as tankering, if you've a better word for it - fire away - but of course the big issue here is the impact on the planet, not the use of the English language.

G
Last edited by Genghis the Engineer on Mon Nov 05, 2018 8:34 am, edited 1 time in total.
#1649084
I saw 'tankering' and thought exactly the same as Condor. They're not 'tankering' fuel, they're 'carrying' fuel they're going to use, as opposed to deliberately landing with extra in the tanks.

Having established they are not carrying 'extra' fuel I'm sure you will appreciate they'll burn far less in the one hop than flying from and to the same places but stopping in between. Yes, it costs fuel to carry fuel but that normally works out as about 1.5% per hour for the extra load (obviously you need to carry the minimum, so that's a moot point). I would wager a LOT of ale that the fuel burn increase, as a result of the greater fuel load being carried than two separate flights, will be a LOT less than the extra taxying, take-off and landing that the two sector alternative would use.

Also, don't forget the two sector flights will be burning extra fuel as a result of having to arrive at the intermediate stop with alternate + reserves etc. A single sector carries that fuel once. A two sector, twice.

I would suggest the effect on everyones' greenhouses are reduced by this flight, not increased (assuming the same people wanted to fly to and from the same places).
#1649093
Unfortunately, you'd lose your wager.

Lots of research is out there to show that the optimal distance is around 3000nm. Below that the extra fuel on departures and climbs pushes the per-mile fuel burn up, above that the extra weight on board pushes the fuel burn up.

G