Antipodeslonghaul

Somehow couldn't edit. 21,599 nautical miles for two airports that are almost next to each other, not 10,799, woops. Anyway I can see how JFK-HKG eastbound across the Atlantic plus staying south of Russia could work in 16 to 17 hours with strong a strong jetstream. It's something I always found interesting for example back when SIA introduced SIN-EWR in the A340-500, all the different route options, depending on the winds, turbulence etc., and of course to an extent geopolitics.

https://sg.news.yahoo.com/cathay-plans-worlds-longest-passenger-145934035.html I just happened to see this. Involving politics though and not purely the great circle distance between two points. Not so sure about the article though. 9,000 nautical miles in 16 hours? Ok, then actually the Westray to Papa Westray flight is also the longest flight in the world since the two airfields are about 10,799 nautical miles apart (if you fly in the wrong direction).

That's interesting, the Tahiti - Paris nonstop. I do now remember reading about that. From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longest_flights Maybe as early as the late 1950's a DC-8 or 707 could have potentially been modified to carry mostly fuel and perhaps only 30 first class passengers, no additional cargo, and the London - Sydney nonstop might have already been a reality at the advent of the passenger jet age. When I do 777-200LR ultra long hauls in the sim, on a London - Sydney type flight I might have a payload of 20,000 kg (140 or so passengers plus some freight), and like 160,000 kg of ramp fuel. For example with the 747SP, 747-400, or A340-500, plus some combination of aux tanks and low pax and freight capacity, these super ultra long hauls were already possible long ago (although possible is not necessarily profitable). UK and Australia have a pretty big connection, people frequently going back and forth. Sydney - London (westbound/generally more headwinds) should be around 20 hours 40 minutes gate to gate when going nonstop. 22 hours 40 minutes, only 2 hours longer, with a 50 minute layover in Singapore is currently the fastest connection I see available. More typical connections are around 24 hours, with 2 hours or so in Dubai for example. So is it worth saving about 3 1/2 hours on the Kangaroo Route if it's a nonstop? Maybe it's partly prestige, but it also seems to make at least some economical sense. I'd definitely want to try it out. *** I get carried away on these topics. I guess the longest endurance from a passenger and crew perspective would perhaps have been some hijacking, perhaps in the 1970's or 1980's. Just did a quick search, looks like an Indian Airlines A300 was held by terrorists and underway to various destinations for about 8 days in 1999, may have been the longest. Certainly no one wants to go through that. But on a lighter note perhaps living aboard a cargo 747, maybe for a couple of weeks, circling the globe a few times, only getting out to do walkarounds on the ramp would be fun.

Pretty cool. I'm still waiting for LHR-SYD regular nonstops. I think SIN-JFK is still the current number one distance wise. Something like CAN-GRU, PVG-GRU (nonstop between megalapolises), or possibly AKL-LHR could some day perhaps become future contenders. I think my longest flight was TPE-FRA in economy, 777-300ER China Airlines. The longest time wise only because the routing went up to Osaka and then Vladivostok (Taiwan/PRC politics), about 14 or 15 hours total flight time. But being in an exit row with full leg stretch, the seat next to me empty, the entire plane maybe half full, I could have easily gone 20 hours, no problem. On the other hand a two hour flight, i.e. MUC-PMI, a jam packed 737, the kid behind you constantly kicking your seat, screaming babies, arguing passengers, people not only hogging the armrests but jabbing you with their elbows can be grueling. That for 20 hours, I couldn't imagine.

Tried a couple of flights to Antarctica in the PMDG 747-400, not successful at finding the runway, crash landing....But cool (really cool) loading the sim down there, opening all the doors and playing with the cabin temperature APU vs. ground power/ AC unit.

With a brand new colony in place and the new Martians breeding like rabbits, might there be some form of public transit connecting the various structures, or would everyone get their own freestanding home and drive around in Mars rovers? Also if some sector had a sudden viral outbreak, would Elon take any steps to protect his fragile domicile? Or would he just say let it rip, based on current trends, probably zero new cases within a few weeks.

Hi HiFlyer, I guess you New Yorkers will always find someone from your hometown somewhere in the World. I just walked past this sign in Munich, Germany today, and it made me think of this topic. I definitely miss bagels and pizza as well. I only lived in New York (Spanish Harlem near the Upper East Side) for a short time, about 3 months, but I really loved it. My apartment there was actually so quiet, surprisingly. Just a basketball court like 18 stories beneath me, so only a bit of noise in the daytime. The street was way off to the other side of the building though. Plus tons of little grocery stores and food places nearby. If you're lucky, you can have a really great life in the city.

I used to be a city snob. Chicago, Manchester, Hamburg, Osaka etc. weren't even real cities compared to their respective number one counterparts. But I gradually changed. Right now the only city criteria for me is having a sidewalk, a traffic signal and a crossing for pedestrians, and maybe a McDonald's. Any place that has those already qualifies as being a city. I still love the hustle and bustle of megacities, but beyond a certain point, 20, 30, 40 million people in a single urban area, it doesn't seem to matter anymore. Some places I've never been to but that are still high up on my list though are Sao Paulo, Chongqing, Guangzhou, Kolkata, Mumbai and Rangoon (Yangon). Chongqing is by some measures considered to actually be the largest city in the World, but there doesn't seem to be any one size fits all measure. I'm very glad I made it to Jakarta a couple of years ago, and was able to walk around so much and use their BRT metro system. The Big Durian as its affectionately known, kind of like The Big Apple. Being in a very large city where you're forced to stay alert and have a 360 degree radar due to the crowds, motor scooters, construction work etc. is tiring but also incredibly fun for me. I guess kind of being forced to fully be in tune with the present moment.

Sim City 3000, oldie, goodie, classic, good music too.

Ah yes, Pan Am and Eastern. Among my earliest flight memories circa 1980, Pan Am 747's SFO-JFK-FRA and back FRA-LHR-JFK, and then after a week in sweltering summer NYC, an Eastern, most likely L-1011, back to foggy SFO. I also have some fun memories of Alitalia, not quite as pleasant, but I've always loved their paint scheme. TWA was cool too, I loved the red and white, watching their 747's from my Pan Am 747 window seat, and wanting to get on one of them. As a kid the more plane changes and airline changes, takeoffs and landings, the better. A 48 hour flight from USA to Europe with like 10 stops would have been just fine.

@martin-w, I'm generally with you. I wouldn't want to own a gun anyway. And much prefer living in an area where guns don't seem prevalent. If I saw someone stealing my 800 euro mountainbike out on the street I'd actually also feel inclined to shoot the thief, but I'm 100% sure I wouldn't take a human life over some silly material object. Nor would I probably if someone broke into my home. But inside one's own home, it's sort of sacred ground. Plus there's that instinctive fear factor, the darkness, being awoken in the middle of the night. Anyway, of course I also know to use per capita when comparing different countries. Germany is about 1/4, UK about 1/5 the size if the US. I was mainly comparing the US against itself, saying their accidental gun deaths seem relatively low overall compared to all the other stuff that's been going on, or continues to go on.

It's exactly what's happening where I am right now (Germany), but not with guns. Sorry! sorry! don't mention the.....but something to do with an ailment almost certainly originating in Hubei Province. But anyway about 38k gun deaths in US per year, of which about 24k are suicides, 11k considered homicides, and I'm not sure, but I'm guessing a relatively low number are purely 100% accidental. About 36k motor vehicle deaths in US per year. It's a big country. The other thing is still running at a rate of about half a million per year, although coming down in the US now. My inclination would be to shoot any intruder who entered my home right away without asking questions, and not use a safe, but I've never owned a gun, and have lived in various parts of the US for many years. I never really felt threatened. I think it should be a local law matter in the US (the Federal government doesn't infringe upon the rights of local and state governments to regulate this). It seems many gun owners in the US are indeed very careful and responsible. But as technology advances (some crazy futuristic Star Wars or Star Trek type phasers or whatever), laws permitting access to certain types of weapons will probably need to be adjusted. An 1880's gun is already quite dangerous as Baldwin proved. I guess movie sets need more FAA/CAA type equivalent inspectors who audit the safety procedures. A royal pain in the donkey, but keep the crews on their toes and make them follow clear procedures where everyone knows exactly what responsibilities they have. I think it's a big difference between should Baldwin have checked the gun, as anyone who handles a gun should do, or was Baldwin required to check the gun according to the procedures in place. And finally I guess there's also the factor that nothing ever seems to be 100% safe (guns, planes, cars, diseases, nuclear power stations, whatever...), but we should certainly strive for them to be.

HALLOWEEN SALE 40% OFF THROUGH NOV 3 GMT! Sorry if this already appears somewhere else. I already bought it a while ago and just needed to figure out how to re-install it, so I happened upon the sale. https://hifisimtech.com/

Maybe movie crews could learn from air crews. Not my personal virtual airline though. If I forget the flaps before t.o. some observant passenger at a window seat might holler. Or if the flight attendants don't hear the rumbling sound of the gear on final, they might try and notify me. When I'm driving I don't need some checklist telling me to stop at a red light or turn the steering wheel when I want to make a turn, so who needs checklists, standardized procedures, and a clear division of responsibilities anyway?

It is amazing to think of, and makes me want to go out and travel again. Reminded me of The Old Patagonian Express (Paul Theroux).

LAX-JNB is exactly the kind of flight I love doing. It shows up as 16,712 km on Great Circle Mapper I've been doing a lot of 777-200LR flights roughly in the 14,000 to 18,000 km range. Up until about 17,000 km is quite easy with moderate payloads, roughly coincides with the Sydney-London nonstop distance. But I use the 3 aux fuel tank option on PMDG, and always manually enter 500 kg as a rough estimate for the aux fuel tank installation for the aft cargo compartment in the payload manager, since I don't think you'd be able to carry actual cargo and have 3 additional aux tanks in that compartment at the same time. I'm also not quite sure what do do about the aft cargo heat selector on the overhead panel, so I just leave it on low. I also like to use FreeMapTools to look at potential flights in the 14k-18k range.

An old Victorian haunted house. For some reason that made me think of a move like this, I remember seeing one when I was a kid. And I wondered, if the house were in fact haunted, would the ghosts move along with it, or would they remain on the property to haunt the new structure.

Thanks for the great accounts. I think it was maybe common at one point for some people in the Richmond (Clement St), or Sunset (Irving St) to say something like "There's no real Chinese food in Chinatown, that place is only for tourists..." But that's not true. I like how you describe the smells of the East. The whole area, Chinatown, North Beach, Coit Tower, Lombard St, Union Square, it's never been only about tourists. You really bring the place to life!

Good to see some more tips on adding photos, I remember sometimes I was waiting for what seemed like an eternity for the pic to load, I was obviously doing something wrong. I spent a lot of time in NYC in the 80s and 90s, definitely a lot of craziness, definitely its own unique smell of garbage and a background noise, sort of like an echo. I remember people saying if someone walks into a saloon in some tiny town out in the desert, population 100, and shoots a few people, that place will be off the charts, the murder capital, but NY with around 8 million is actually quite safe, statistically speaking. Personally I'd move back there in a heartbeat. I love it. I think it's not the kind of place most people remain indifferent towards, either love or hate, thrilled, excited, disgusted...all the emotions. A lot of other places around the world are more like, oh this place is kind of nice, sort of quaint, not too bad.

Yeah, I can imagine, if I could see it in real, I'm sure I would also be impressed. And those who can fly an F18 are maybe not easily impressed by trivial things to begin with, so I'm not discounting any of this. But I can't help feeling sceptical. A large daytime sighting over a crowded freeway for example, during a traffic jam, where numerous different people get out of their cars and shoot footage. Maybe with a bit of hysteria thrown in, like when the building in Shenzhen started shaking. Something the average joe can relate to better than isolated cases observed mainly by military personnel. I can't help but wonder why something like that hasn't happened yet. Still, it's a very interesting topic for me too, and I look forward to following any developments. Maybe very advanced military drones. Or, I really hope this isn't offensive, the supernatural, angels. I grew up in an atheist household, but I've always had a yearning for the spiritual. I wouldn't entirely discount that either. I'd consider any possibility, just I'm still not convinced that there's much of anything to consider right now at this point.

I don't know why, but I'm not impressed by some strange objects zipping back and forth right in front of us. A weak distant signal, gradually gaining in strength on the other hand, would have my hair standing on end.

Cool! Just watched a bit right now. I know a lot of people don't like the airport, but I always enjoy flying in and out of there (and the In-N-Out there too!) A few years ago I took Xiamen Air from a weird part of the Tom Bradley terminal I had never seen before, for cheaper international flights, like a hangar. And then riding a bus way out to one of the remotest remote stands near the beach, the sea breeze and the night time views, a really great feeling.

I was wondering about all the infrastructure involved, the rail lines themselves, the overpasses etc. scarring the landscape, vs. perhaps 2x4 km perimeters for regional airports. I think the rail lines' big plus though is where you can connect several huge cities with a single line. I'll admit personally, I don't like high speed trains so much. I much prefer flying, also on regional jets/turboprops. I like inner city airports, London-City, Taipei-Songshan, Shanghai-Hongqiao etc. Beyond a certain speed I can't enjoy the scenery anymore, so I figure I may as well fly. I remember when the A380 came out and fuel prices were high, there was some idle chit chat about getting them certified to carry maybe over 1,000 passengers, perhaps with additional emergency exits and amusement park roller coaster style harnesses, where you're kind of half sitting, half standing, to use on short hauls. But in such a case, I'd also prefer taking a high speed train, nice and easy from city center to city center, no big hassles.

Maybe if I change my name to Crosstownshorthaul and just do really short flights like JFK-LGA, I might get this habit under control. Then again maybe not.

For example right now I'm going ZLLL to LFPO, using my method going past Moscow, but I'm quite sure a proper routing would have gone a bit further north, weaker headwinds.