One giant step for Qantas ...

Press, 1 August 1989, Page 41

One giant step for Qantas ...

By

LES BLOXHAM,

travel editor

In the early days of commercial aviation in the pre-war 30s, travellers planning to fly from London to Sydney had to allow at least two weeks for their marathon journey. It often involved 40 or more stops for fuel and rest along the way. No-one then had heard of supersonic Concordes, pressurised jumbos, or jet lag. How times have changed. Qantas, for instance, recently announced it will try to break the world record for commercial aircraft this month by attempting to fly a Boeing 747-400 from London to Sydney without stopping.

The 17,850 km flight almost half way round the world is expected to take 20 hours and 30 minutes. That’s about the same as flying from Auckland to Tokyo and back to Auckland — without landing. Qantas’s Boeing 747-400 ultra-long range aircraft will be on the second and final leg of its delivery flight from the Boeing factory near Seattle to Australia, via London. It will follow the traditional Kangaroo route over Europe, the Middle East, Sri Lanka, and the Cocos Islands. When the airline first established the route in 1935, passengers flew in five different aircraft types owned by three airlines, and used two railways.

There were 42 refuelling stops and the journey took between' 12 and 14 days? The record attempt is schedule to begin at 8 a.m. on August 16 with an estimated arrival at Sydney at 1.30 p.m. the following day. Captain Ken Davenport, the airline’s director of flight operations, said yesterday that the flight would be used to validate performance data and fuel-management techniques. “Range has always been of particular importance to us,” he said. “Australia’s geographical isolation means we have the longest flight sectors of any airline in the world. “We intend entering this one in the aviation record book,” said Mr Davenport.