FSX-SE Planning the "Impossible" - Story of QF7441 (VH-OJA)

[P_7878 6,605]

[Note: This post, triggered by member comments on my earlier Qantas post, is one of my most ambitious...🙂...(took me some time, but was good to take the mind off the "current" state of affairs, for a bit), so please bear with me, here. Qantas, as an Airline, has long fascinated my aviation interests. After all, the country/continent of Australia located Down Under is far from the rest of the world. It's...so to speak...in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by three vast oceans (Indian Ocean to the West, Pacific Ocean to the East, and Southern Ocean to the South), and, therefore, its flag carrier, Qantas, for own survival, has to know about "ultra-long" or/and "non-stop" flights, just to stay connected to the rest of the world...! BTW, it has been, indeed, the case, since the earliest times of aviation. In my previous post, I'd alluded to the record-breaking delivery flight, on August 16/17, 1989, of Qantas' very first 747-400 (VH-OJA), under the remarkable (and determined) leadership of Captain David Massy-Greene. The more I explored the flight itself, and, more significantly, the meticulous preparations, leading up to it, the more, I was convinced that the bold venture (never ever tried before) was nothing short of incredible...! So, here we go, with my (amateur enthusiast's) condensed version (put together from various on-line sources) of this extraordinary flight, along with a set of my own SIM pictures, that, I've also included, as a (symbolic) mnemonic of the event and the venerable aircraft, involved.]

Hope you enjoy the account, or/and, at least, you can jump...🙂...to the SIM screenshots below and enjoy the set of pictures...!

(VH-OJA) was the first of four Boeing 747-438s ordered new by Qantas in March 02, 1987. The planning for the record-breaking flight (to occur two years later, in 1989) would start almost immediately, at the time of the order, itself, under top secrecy (since, surely, other airlines would be also thinking of trying the same adventure, with the game-changer "LONGREACH" 747-400 being just about available - introduction Feb 9, 1989, with NWA). Right off the bat, any way one looked at it, the aircraft's (typical) range around 7,900nms (14,631km), fell well short of the 9,700nm (17,964km) distance between London and Sydney. "Initially the idea was regarded as crazy...surely someone was dyslexic...!", Captain Massy-Green had said. No matter how he planned to do it, he kept coming up short. Undeterred, to make the "impossible" happen, his (covert) planning team, systematically, put themselves to task searching relentlessly for all possible range-gaining measures. The (primary) adjustable factors were quickly determined as follows: (1) Fuel (2) Weight (3) Engines (4) Route (5) Weather.

1. Fuel: Aviation Fuel provider Shell (Germany) liked the ambitious plan and formulated a special (high-density) fuel that would give 4 % greater burning power than regular fuel. They doctored 2 batches of it, but, these would not mix! So, they had to put it in railway carriages, and shunt it up and down for several days to shake it up “like a giant cocktail mixer” to mix it uniformly. Then it was put in 9 tankers and transported across the (English) Channel to London (Heathrow) where the aircraft was waiting to be fueled. Plus, not using the fuel in the horizontal stabilizer tank of the 747 until it was absolutely necessary and running the trim in flight down to its maximum aft center of gravity permissible would keep the aircraft in its most efficient trim condition, use less fuel and gain another 0.4 % in range.
2. Weight: Only 23 people (absolute must), were allowed on board the aircraft, instead of (normal) 500. [Side Note: This included the five Pilots (one Training Captain from Boeing), with PIC/Project-Pilot, Massy-Greene, on the left seat. The four Qantas pilots (all experienced Captains), had a total of about 55000 hours in their four logbooks. There were also, on board, engineers from both Boeing and Rolls Royce]. All were allowed only a carry-on bag (with their luggage shipped separately by Qantas). Aircraft Galley equipment was kept to an absolute minimum (with no "silver" service...!), however, it's to be noted, no extra fuel tanks were provisioned on this 747 (so typical of the (historic) long-distance voyages of the past).
3. Engines: Rolls-Royce, manufacturer of the RB211-524G2 high-bypass turbofan engines (see close-up shots below), agreeing to do whatever was possible, specially selected four engines to be installed on (VH-OJA) at the Boeing plant at Everett, Washington, an unusual arrangement, itself. And, it was agreed, reducing the bleed air demand from the engines for air-conditioning by using just one of the three air conditioning units theoretically would gain around 0.5 % in range.
4. Route: The flight plan was carefully selected after numerous iterations, with ATC offices across Europe, down through Asia, South East Asia, and Australia pre-notified, of the final output (if you wish, you can see the exact FPLN (copy of original) on one of the on-line resources). Personally, speaking here, as the non-pilot layman, as soon as I entered (EGLL -> YSSY) on SimBrief, it immediately told me that the (B744) aircraft type does not have the range (oh well...even I knew that already...)! Plus, see one screenshot below, where I've plotted the first few waypoints of Massy-Greene's final route, along with a standard (RW?) SimBrief output. You will notice, their track did not head out direct eastward (normal Great Circle track), but, almost instantly, starts heading south-east towards Asia (the famous Kangaroo Route, but without hops?), direct to (DVR) - the (VOR) beacon on the cliffs of Dover! Meanwhile, many of the ATCs had already begun wondering...hmm...(1) No scheduled landings between London and Sydney (2) Note on FPLN "ENGLAND-AUSTRALIA RECORD" (3) An (unheard of) "civilian" airliner Flightplan of 19 hours 53 minutes...etc.
5. Weather: There was growing concern that the weather reports could be wrong and forecast strong tailwinds may fail to materialize, resulting in fuel being consumed at too high a rate (which indeed happened en-route). Originally, the first -400 had been scheduled for delivery in April, statistically one of the better times of the year in terms of wind for the record attempt. The delay until August put it into one of the worst times of the year with (strongest) opposing headwinds, but the plan would stay on course...while members of the team pored over historical winds and weather data for the route.

On the morning of the flight, City of Canberra was "towed" to the "Hold Short" position for Runway 28R [Side Note: Heathrow runways have since been re-designated 27R/09L and 27L/09R]. It was to not use any of the precious fuel while taxiing from the terminal. Once there, its fuel tanks were filled to overflow, by prior agreement. The airport fire department stood by as the excess fuel ran out of the tank vents. The flight crew planned the engine start to allow for the 3-minute warm-up (this RR (mandatory) recommendation must have seemed like an eternity to the crew...burning up fuel...!). At around 08:40 BST, all checklists completed, David asked the First Officer to call the Tower with the message "Qantas 7441 - Ready - Two eight right". The Tower responded with "Qantas 741, cleared for take-off two eight right - maintain runway heading and call London Approach on 119 decimal 725 airborne. Good luck and don’t forget to write"! The wheels of the 747 lifted off Heathrow, heading west, in the opposite direction (normally the arrival direction), cleared to FL330, climbing straight ahead before rolling into the first of several left hand turns that would ultimately put her overhead Dover, now eastbound (please see couple of shots, below, from one such (simulated) left turn, after takeoff, by yours truly, "armchair" pilot...🙂...). (VH-OJA) and its crew were finally on their way destined into the annals of "Guinness Records" or could it be "ignominy"...who knew...!

Fast forward: Somewhere over the Indian Ocean, came the news that the weather in Sydney, set fair when the flight departed, had turned foul. The city would be shrouded with thunderstorms and low cloud around the planned arrival time. The wind was gusting to 40 knots and visibility was down to 3kms. Flight control in Sydney was advising a 30-minute hold, and for that, City of Canberra was out of fuel! The weather over Melbourne and Adelaide (possible Alternates) was fine. The crunch point was, however, Cowra (in NSW). Once the aircraft was east of Cowra, there wouldn't be enough fuel remaining to divert to either Adelaide or Melbourne. Then "It was Sydney or bust...", it was concluded...!

At 11:30am (Sydney time), the flight made landfall into Australian soil above its Western coastline, still flying very high at 45,000ft, with the fuel gauge showing 22.8 tonnes of fuel remaining. A revised (and much welcome) forecast came in from Sydney changing the thunderstorm warning to heavy showers. Over Pymble, the autopilot was disabled and the pilots took control for the final approach into Sydney. Just before touchdown, a warning chime and an indicator screen flashed the message "FUEL QTY LOW", indicating less than 900 kilograms of fuel. But it was enough...! At 2.20pm Sydney time, VH-OJA, returned to earth, landing on Sydney's Runway 16R (please see shots), 20 hours and 9 minutes after it had left Heathrow. It had just about 45 minutes of airborne life left! The distance flown by the new 747 was 17,039.00 kms (10,587.54 miles) at an average speed of 845.58 kmph (525.42 mph), leading to multiple new (world) records. David Massy-Greene, later on, would go on to make several significant contributions/patents, while working for Boeing, and, in 2018, was inducted into the Australian Aviation Hall of Fame.

I must admit, in spite of due diligence, I could not find a desired (VH-OJA) repaint for my excellent (recently acquired, and almost new...🙂...) FSX:SE iFly(B744v2), so, I've, instead, used (VH-OJM), also a B747-438 with the same RB211-524G engines. For this post, I've juxtaposed screenshots from two separate (short flights) at EGLL and YSSY. Nonetheless, I hope, these pictures, below, help bring back, at least, the minutest memories, here, of the (landmark) Qantas Flight 7441, and the aircraft (VH-OJA), which is, now, proudly, preserved, at the HARS Aviation Museum in Albion Park (NSW)...!

This post (SIM + Story) was all great fun (and learning too) for me...!

Thanks for any comments, thoughts, edits, and re-collections...!! Good rest of the week (and weekend ahead)...!

[iFly(744v2)/Orbx(England/AU)/REX]

[Pugilist2 878]

Excellent screenshots and story. Enjoyed it!

Edited July 31, 2020 by Pugilist2

[HighBypass 2,339]

Sooo... Fudging the numbers to claim something not possible by off the shelf means.. No aircraft manufacturers, or car manufacturers have ever done that... right?  

I seem to remember the MD-11 not meeting its projected range figures...

Ahem, kudos for Qantas for the successful attempt, breaking outright records rarely involves stock times anyway. Kudos to you for another historic flight project! Thank you 

[P_7878 6,605]

9 hours ago, Pugilist2 said:

Excellent screenshots and story. Enjoyed it!

Many thanks...! Glad you liked the text and the screenshots. Please note, I, with my FSX/SE, have always stayed clear of London airspace...🙂....because of "known" OOM issues...(even if I've no add-on for EGLL...). For this post, I was forced to go a "couple" of notches to left (of normal) on my Combo Setting slider, so, the pictures, here, are not at their best, as in my other posts...., but did appreciate the comment...! BTW, anyone, who has P3D/PMDG 747, might have access to the (VH-OJA)....I think...

 

9 hours ago, HighBypass said:

Sooo... Fudging the numbers to claim something not possible by off the shelf means.. No aircraft manufacturers, or car manufacturers have ever done that... right?  

I seem to remember the MD-11 not meeting its projected range figures...

Ahem, kudos for Qantas for the successful attempt, breaking outright records rarely involves stock times anyway. Kudos to you for another historic flight project! Thank you 

Thanks for the notes and compliments, Mark...!!

Now, you might just dust off that that (British) Handley Page H.P.42 Biplane, from your hangar, and set out to match the Route of this voyage....just kidding....🙂.....but, please see below...

 

Additional notes of interest and "Optional Reading", of course,...🙂...!

[BTW, there are wonderful on-line (Aussie) resources, available, if you are interested, in Qantas and its airliners...!!]

1. Regarding Fuel density, I'd forgotten...(back to high-school science a bit....🙂...)....typically oils and fuels are less dense than water (i.e. they have Specific Gravity < 1.0). Jet A-1 fuel has Specific Gravity of about 0.80. Believe it or not, to have increased fuel density (i.e. to get "more bang for their buck", so to speak...), the QF7441 team, thought of using (proven) military grade "JP-10" fuel (much denser than Jet A-1, used in air breathing rockets..!). But, when they ran it by Boeing, here is the summary response from Boeing Engineers, "The Boeing engineers gulped, took a couple of deep breaths and advised that apart from the fact that the wing structures simply weren’t robust enough to contain this kind of weight, they’d also need to add outrigger wheels to each wing, like the B-52 bomber to keep the wing tips off the ground. Not a good look!" - especially for the "beautiful" plane (soon to be called) "Queen of the Skies"....🙂...! Eventually, however, Shell’s (own) special "brew" came within the specification range for Jet A-1.
2. I'd mentioned the (so-called) Kangaroo route in my post, that happened back in 1934/1935, operated jointly by the old Imperial Airways and Qantas Empire Airways, in a Handley Page 42, with 42 stops (I see ~7 stops, just to cross India...!). That old route (~20,000 kms) had taken 12-14 days. Fifty-five years later, QF7441 roughly matched it with "0" stop in 20 hrs (with ~17,000 kms)!
3. As the QF7441 crew travelled forward, for the most efficient use of the fuel on board, it was critical that they climbed higher in altitude, as (VH-OJA) got lighter. Recalling, they were initially cleared to FL330, after about 8.5 hrs into flight, overhead Muscat, they had already climbed to FL370. Then, the sector across the Arabian Sea, is where, they ran into the stiffest headwinds (worse than predicted) causing them to make "worrying" subtractions from their fuel-reserves. However, en-route to Cocoa Island (the Maldives), in the Indian Ocean, they had climbed to FL410, with the Wind Gods (now) smiling favorably on (VH-OJA). And, as they finally approached Carnarvon VOR (CAR), on the edge of Australia’s west-coast, their DME started counting down the distance to landfall (we can only imagine their expectation and anxiety, at that point...!), and, as I'd indicated earlier, by that time, they were already scraping Concorde's flight levels, with 45,100 feet (close to the jet's service ceiling) - while, at the same time, keeping close eyes on the cabin pressure gauges to monitor how the "single" A/C Pack is coping (no problems there, though, so, one less thing to worry about...!).
4. After successful completion of the voyage, among the records that were bestowed on (VH-OJA) and its Crew were the following two (1) Distance sans escale (Distance without a stop) (2) Vitesse sur parcurs reconnu (Speed over a recognised Course). So, along with the obligatory (and numerous) Press-Interviews, David had the pleasure of "phoning" in the "Guinness" people with the details about the flight...!
5. The first record (above) would stand for more than 16 years, till November 2005, when Boeing test pilot, Suzanna Darcy-Henneman (also the lead test pilot of Boeing 777 program), and her crew, made the record-breaking (promotion) flight of 21,602.22 kms from Hong Kong to London (the long way around) over the Pacific Ocean and the Atlantic Ocean, in a  B777-200LR. Please also see below.
6. Regarding, non-stop London-Sydney by an airliner, 20 years after QF7441, just last year (November 15, 2019), an experimental research flight (QF7879) by Qantas, using a factory-fresh 787-9 Dreamliner, finally broke QF7441's distance/time records. Flight QF7879 became the world's longest passenger flight by a commercial airline both for distance, at 17,800 kilometers (about 11,060 miles), and for duration in the air, at 19 hrs and 19 mins, bettering QF7441's time (20 hrs 9 mins) by about 50 minutes, but, here is the surprise: The B787-9 did it with almost half the fuel of the B747-400 (~100 tonnes vs. 180 tonnes)!

[787flyer 633]

Great write-up of that ground breaking flight back in August 1989. Thanks for sharing that special piece of aviation history.👍

 

You also got me looking more into that flight and I discovered a couple other interesting facts on that day:

1. That flight did not set out as planned I learnt. According to one report VH-OJA had an APU problem before the flight departed the terminal 45mins late at LHR.
2. You forgot to mention one additional passenger on board 😉 .... one of the Ashes cricket ball that helped capture the series for the Aussies in 1989 was on board and brought back to Australia. BTW...That comprehensive victory over England still hurts even now! 😢

Anyway, I have the flight plan for that historic flight. I may just try that in my 787-9 Dreamliner in P3Dv5 when I have a few hours spare!

And the next time I am in Sydney I will definitely pay HARS a visit.

 

Cheers
Mark

[P_7878 6,605]

Mark:

Good add-on bits, thanks...!!

Can you imagine the crew, eager to start bright and early, on that day, but being delayed like this..surely they must have got a case of butterflies....!

So, we had stow-away (24th) passenger...🙂...then, on board (VH-OJA),....at least it didn't contribute to any significant additional weight...🙂...

[Dug up a bit about the 1989 Ashes Series...Oh...Oh...England were expected to win (4-0), but, Australia won by beating the odds and flipping the score (4-0) in their favor...it looks like...yes, that must surely hurt...(anyway, around, here, the game of "bat and ball" has a slightly different connotation, as you might know)...🙂....]

Regarding Qantas B787s:

That 2nd-time-only (London-Sydney) non-stop Flight QF7879, November last year (2019), was operated by B787-9 reg. no. (VH-ZNJ). On looking at the QW-SIM 787 website, I see a 787-9 repaint (Qantas New Livery), there, listed with Tag (VH-VKA), but, (VH-VKA) is coming up (?) as a (B787-8), ordered and accepted (new) by Qantas, but, later on, registered to Jetstar, who seems to be the current operator of the (VH-VKA).

[And, Mark, excuse my typo/error, above, it was actually, (1989-2019), i.e. "30" years (not 20, as I've stated) for London-Sydney, to be connected again by a "non-stop" flight...it makes Massy-Greene's (original) feat quite remarkable indeed....]