London-Sydney direct flight set to go the distance

The second Qantas experimental flight to test the viability of extreme flying was due to take off from London overnight bound for Sydney, where it was set to land nearly 20 hours later.

The brand new 787 Dreamliner will have about 50 passengers and crew on board for the non-stop leg, which follows a New York-Sydney test flight last month.

Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce has floated the option of redesigned aircraft cabins to include “move and stretch” zones and other social spaces for ultra-longhaul commercial flights.

“We know that travellers want room to move on these direct services, and the exercises we encouraged on the first research flight seemed to work really well. So, we’re definitely looking to incorporate onboard stretching zones and even some simple modifications like overhead handles to encourage low impact exercises.”

The test flights are aimed at studying the affect on those on board. Scientists monitor crew and passengers for research into minimising jetlag for passengers and improving crew wellbeing.

Qantas will soon make a call on whether to launch commercial flights between Australia’s eastern cities and London and New York as part of Project Sunrise. It is still considering which aircraft to use, with Airbus and Boeing having pitched aircraft (the A350 and 777X respectively) and is in negotiations with pilots who will crew the flights.

The flight was scheduled to take off at 7pm (NZ time) and with tail winds forecast is expected to take 19 and a half hours. It will cover 17,800km.

It comes almost 100 years to the day after the first London-Australia flight operated from Hounslow Heath (near today’s Heathrow) to Darwin, a journey that took 28 days.

The overnight flight is a repurposed delivery flight, and is not the first non-stop journey from London to Sydney. Thirty years ago a Boeing 747 which had not had its cabin fitted made the trip using special fuel.

The Jumbo used used around 180 tonnes of fuel on that flight, while the twin-engined Dreamliner will burn just over half as much.

The new plane will have a maximum fuel load of 126,000 litres and is expected to have 7500 litres left when it lands. That translates to 100 minutes of flight time.

Airlines are under intensifying pressure from environmentally aware travellers to cut carbon emissions, but Qantas says all emissions from this and two New York-Sydney research flights will be offset.