Simviation Forums

Well its the new aviation equivilant of the Japanese gameshow Endurance...

A hardy group of 181 passengers boarded a jet at Singapore airport yesterday for the world's longest commercial flight - an inaugural non-stop service to New York designed to appeal to time-pressed Asian and American business executives.
After a champagne send-off accompanied by a band blasting out "New York, New York", the Singapore Airlines plane embarked on an 18-hour, 8,900 nautical mile journey over the North Pole which has drawn criticism from experts on medical and commercial grounds.
Airline staff handed out 20,000 red apples to mark the record, which uses a new ultra long-range Airbus A340-500 plane with enlarged wings, enhanced engines and a smaller, lighter body than traditional passenger aircraft.
Singapore Airlines said it would knock four hours off a one-stop service and would cut down on delays. A spokesman, John Cotton, said: "If you've got an intermediate stop-off point you're at the mercy of air traffic control and various other factors, which can be very inconvenient."
The new Airbus plane has a long enough range to fly non-stop between London and western Australia. But doctors have expressed concern about the impact on the body of such long unbroken flights, in which passengers will constantly breathe recycled air.

This really has to be rated as the ultimate buttock endurance test!

Surely some sort of exercise, other than going back and forth to the john, would be in order.  I remember news a year or two back about blood clots supposedly caused by inactivity on long flights .  I suppose you could lie in your seat and do isometrics .  I wonder if the air recycling differs from that in ordinary long flights .  Theoretically it could be done indefinitely as on a spacecraft of course.  How long are the longest routine flights prior to this bottom-buster?

Sounds like a good candidate for the A-380...  :)

what i want to know is how the hell did an A340-500 get off the ground with the fuel required for that trip. I bet they bypassed the reduced thrust setting for one.
18 hours on a plane is inhuman, but then again with the new 777's both 300ER and 200LR it will become common place.

Man if they made that the punishment for criminals (Like if you committed burgalury then your sentenced to 5 of those flights and if you commited murder your sentenced to 100 of those flights) then I bet the crime rate would drop dramatically........... ..........but on the other hand the U.S. Constitution Amendment 8 banned all cruel punishments

Cheers
Jeff

[quote]Surely some sort of exercise, other than going back and forth to the john, would be in order.

My legs can start to ache if I sit at the computer too long or if i'm in a car for long periods of time. It couldn't be blood clotting would it?

I surely wouldn't think so; the clotting was a more acute, serious, and rare thing, and I really suspect it was caused by something other than just sitting on planes.  However, your aches should go away if you walk around every hour or two to improve circulation and take pressure off nerves for a few minutes.

I used to get a serious bottom ache on long road trips.  I finally realized that my fat (not with $$  :'() wallet was pressing on my sciatic nerve and irritating it.  The problem soon went away when I started removing my wallet on trips .

The blood clotting is a medical condition known as Deep Vein Thrombosis, more recently referred to as "economy class syndrome". This has been known for many years & is not restricted to air travel. After a couple of law-suits it was reluctantly admitted by the airlines that airline passengers could be at risk, especially on long-haul flights, due to inactivity & dehydration caused by sitting for long periods in cramped ecomomy class seating. All the major airlines were aware of this but never pointed it out or advised on the best way to minimise the risk.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/medical_notes/c-d/986364.stm

The longest flight I've been on was from Heathrow to Changi, Singapore. I think it took 13 hours or more but I really can't remember. I only know it seemed to take forever & I was glad when we finally arrived. This was long before DVT had been publicised but I always exercise regularly on long flights. This seems only sensible to me.