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LONDON -- It was the mother of all red-eye flights.
(Instead of red eye, I would think "red butt" would be more appropriate!)
Hong Kong to London the hard way, eastbound with the winds. Non-stop across two oceans and North America -- more than halfway around the world.
By the time the wheels of the Boeing jet touched down at London's Heathrow airport at 1:18 p.m. local time Thursday, it had set a distance record of 11,664 nautical miles or, measured on the same scale as a car's odometer, 13,422 miles (21,601 kilometers). Flight time was 22 hours, 42 minutes.
Since the dawn of the jet age more than a half-century ago, no commercial jetliner had ever flown as far non-stop without refueling.
In 1962, a Boeing B-52 bomber flew 12,532 miles from Kadena, Okinawa, to an Air Force base outside of Madrid, Spain, setting the unlimited distance record by a jet without refueling.
Boeing 002, the call sign for the plane, beat that mark handily. In doing so, it drew the attention even of those in aviation used to dealing with long-haul jets.
After the plane made its final turn point over JFK Airport and headed toward New England, an air traffic controller in Canada asked the pilots for their point of origin. The controller already knew the plane's
destination was London.
Boeing test pilot Randy Austin, who was piloting the plane at the time, told the controller it had come from Hong Kong. The controller, apparently not believing it was the Hong Kong in Asia, asked for that city's
four-letter designation used by pilots.
"Is this some kind of special flight?" the controller finally asked.
The controller was told it was a world record distance flight.
It is confusing. To go to London from Hong Kong, a plane would usually fly over Southeast Asia, then the Middle East and into Europe. Planes have been making that flight non-stop since 1983. The 5,300 nautical mile flight takes about 10 hours.
Other airline pilots heard the conversation between the Boeing pilots and the air traffic controller and started calling the 777 pilots to wish them well and to ask questions. How much fuel did they have left; how long had they been flying? Pilot talk.
Calls came in from pilots of American, Continental and El Al jets that were in the vicinity of the 777.
The route the jet took across the Atlantic on its final of four legs was close to that flown by Charles Lindbergh in his Spirit of St. Louis in 1927.
As the jet approached Heathrow for landing, it was placed in a holding pattern that continued for about 20 minutes. The Heathrow controller asked the 777 pilots how long they had been flying. Told the flight time so far was more than 22 hours, the controller who had put the jet on hold replied: "My apologies."
Boeing established the distance record with its 777-200LR Worldliner, the longest-range jetliner ever built. The plane, which will be able to carry more than 300 passengers in a three-class cabin arrangement, will not enter airline passenger service until early next year. Instead of paying
passengers, the plane on its record-setting jaunt carried nine pilots, two Boeing executives, several Boeing engineers, a flight attendant, customer representatives, 11 journalists and a BBC cameraman.
The flight started from Hong Kong Wednesday, flew into Thursday over the Pacific, then back into Wednesday when it crossed the International Dateline, and finally into Thursday again.
Arriving at Heathrow Airport under cloudy skies, two airport fire trucks welcomed the big blue Boeing jet with streams of water as it pulled up to a waiting media crowd.
"I feel great," said Lars Anderson, vice president of Boeing's 777 program, who led the Boeing group off the plane, followed by the journalists who had been invited along for the history-making flight.
The flight crew came off last, led by Captain Suzanna Darcy-Hennemann, project leader for the record-breaking flight and chief test pilot for the 777-200LR program.
The plane had 360,732 pounds of fuel before the engines were started in Hong Kong -- more than the combined weight of the plane, its passengers and their bags. When it landed in London it had 18,700 pounds of fuel remaining.
Call it a publicity stunt -- and Boeing certainly got a lot of media attention with the flight. But the distance record came at a time when several major international airlines -- Qantas, Singapore, Emirates and
Cathay Pacific -- are looking at the 777-200LR for ultra-long-haul flights. Boeing faces competition from Airbus in each of those hard-fought campaigns.
A Singapore Airlines 777 pilot took turns flying the jet with five Boeing pilots, another pilot from General Electric and two more from Pakistan International Airlines.
"We believe it is important to keep building the image of this plane and its capabilities," Andersen said when asked why Boeing wanted the record. "This flight underscores our strategy of point-to-point service."
The jet was still more than an hour away from Los Angeles, with a continent to cross and another ocean, when it passed the halfway point of the flight -- something once known as the point of no return. But it was five minutes ahead of schedule and the 777's two General Electric engines -- the most powerful ever built -- had burned 3,000 pounds less fuel than had been estimated for that point before the flight began.
"She knows what she has to do and she's going for it," Darcy-Hennemann said. That "she" is Blue Baby 2, the name the Boeing test pilots have fondly given the plane, which is painted in a Boeing blue livery. It is the second of two 777-200LRs that have been used in the test flight program that began last March.
Andersen broke open two bottles of Washington-state sparkling wine and everyone gathered in the spacious front cabin -- except the pilots -- to toast the halfway milestone.
An hour later, just after the plane passed over Los Angeles at 37,000 feet, John Cashman, director of flight-crew operations and chief pilot for Boeing Commercial Airplanes, and others on the Boeing team received a call from Alan Mulally, chief executive of Boeing Commercial Airplanes, who had led the program to develop the 777.
"Congratulations. You are changing the world," Mulally told one.
The big jet's unusual route to London had been mapped out three hours before take-off, calculated to set a distance record but also to catch the best possible tail winds along the way.
It took the flight over Taiwan, along the southern coast of Japan and across the Pacific toward Midway. Northwest of Midway the jet took the first of three critical "turn points" that are used to measure the distance record. The second turn point was Los Angeles and the third New York. The distance for the record was the sum of the four legs.
The plane actually flew farther than the 13,422 miles that went into the record book. That's because the distance record is measured by a straight line from the start to each of the three turn points and finally to the end point at Heathrow. But the plane did not fly in a straight line between those points. The pilots would sometimes change course slightly to find better winds, although each of the three turn points had to be overflown.
A flight map that is part of the jet's in-flight entertainment system showed the total miles flown just before landing at 14,042 miles.
The record flight came 100 years after the Wright Brothers, in 1905, set a distance record of 24 miles in 38 minutes, 20 seconds. It is considered aviation's first distance record and was recognized as such by the National Aeronautics Association, which was formed that same year.
A representative of the organization was on the 777-200LR to monitor the flight and certify the distance record.
About 11 hours into the flight, Bob Buchholz, Boeing's chief engineer for 777 safety, certification and performance, was talking with a reporter in the front cabin, noting the history being made.
He became teary eyed as he considered those first non-stop airplane flights across the Pacific, the Atlantic and the United States made so long ago by aviation pioneers such as John Alcock and Arthur Whitten Brown, who first crossed the Atlantic non-stop in June 1919.
Blue Baby 2 crossed them all .. and in one flight.
"Pilots Without Maintainers are Just Pedestrians With Leather Jackets and Cool Sunglasses."
_________________
\"Those who hammer their guns into plows
will plow for those who do not.\"
- Thomas Jefferson
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