also possible is having both events occur on the same flight.
for the trip over we had a 1 hour layover in melbourn for which we didn’t leave the plane. we landed in melbourn 14 hours after we took off in dallas, an hour on the ground, and then 2 hours to sydney. we thought it was interesting that it took longer to get home directly than it did to go there with a stop.
When I read about the horrific experiences that taller than average people can have in the cattle-car section, it makes me wonder what the optimum layover schedule might be, just from a human physiology perspective.
When steam locomotives were in their infancy, critics worried that the human body couldnt hold up at unthinkable velicities like 60 mph. While that particular barrier turned out not to be a thing… I think there is a practical limit, somewhere.
Be sure one of the test flights includes a constantly crying baby.
I’ve done the 18 hour London to Perth flight (return, so, twice) and it’s a joy compared to a 22+ hour journey that involves having to deal with a random airport in the middle of the journey along with the risk that your luggage won’t make the transfer. (and the worry of delays causing you to miss your connecting flight)
Coming home was great in so far as no matter how over it you were, you knew that the next time you had to give a crap you were home.
I’d happily do it again, except that a major carrier does one of those two-part flights that lands at a UK airport much closer to where I want to be, saving an expensive 4-hour train journey (and having to deal with Heathrow), so that’s actually worth the random airport and the other issues above.
Of course, there are other implications, not the least being loss of fuel or engine failure in a non-stop twin engined jet flight, that would be a mere inconvenience on a land based train. BTW QANTAS is an abbreviation, not a natural word and there is no U.
Been there. Done that. With a toddler
Thanks for pulling me down a super interesting rabbit hole! Not sure is this is a good thing or a bad thing… fun/fascinating nonetheless!
From reading pprune threads about this flight I learned that it is actually quite easy to get a longer than specified range out of an airliner, by flying it almost empty of freight (human and otherwise) and loading it up with fuel. It was been done to fly the UK PM direct from London to Sydney in 2006.
The trick is making money off it at the same time.
I’m guessing none of the geniuses at Quantas has been on a long distance train. Guess what? It’s long and tiring, but otherwise fine
Problem is that something may go wrong at the end of the flight which requires the crew to use all their cognition and creativity to save the aircraft and those inside it. If the crew are in a degraded condition, they may simply not be able to do that.
It has happened before. Crew fatigue is a serious problem, and its not just down to food, coffee and sleep. If you put somebody in a jail cell for 20 hours they might not be fit to fly a plane right when they came out.
I think the problem isn’t maximum speed but rather acceleration. You’ll probably be fine accelerating up to 0.15c over a couple of months, but doing 0-60mph in a tenth of a second might give you a bit of trouble.
Ah, yes, “rate of change of acceleration” otherwise known as “jerk”.
And one or more farters (even if it’s in the non-farting section).
I have been on one, but only for half that amount of time.
And I was able to walk around on the train, and even get off the train during one of two half-hour breaks when they changed crews.
@Entity447B’s examples are of acceleration, not jerk. But, if you think jerk is fun, have you heard the names of the next three derivatives of position over time?
This topic was automatically closed after 5 days. New replies are no longer allowed.
