The World's LONGEST Flight - QANTAS London to Sydney

- Qantas non-stop research

flight

from London to Sydney, here I come. And today we will see double dawn. - Today we will see double sunrise. High five. - In 1919, 100 years ago, it took 28 days from the United Kingdom to Australia. Precious, this is the magical time of the day. - Trying to reach towards the locker. - Sitting can also be an exercise. Can you show me the seated exercise? You could even carry more passengers. Everything about this plane is really special. I think I'll lose some weight after landing. We need to set our biological clock to Sydney time.

So this is dinner right now. - I would like to share with you something very close to my heart. - The A350 or the 777X, which is your favorite plane, Alan? These are the typical landscapes of the Australian interior. This is a

flight

that makes history. (crowd cheering) Yay! (upbeat music) - Welcome to our non-stop flight to Sydney today. We will board through gate number one shortly after 5:00 a.m. m. And that is there for you today. Then, when you're ready, you can go through security. - Thank you. - Thank you so much. - Take care. - Enjoy. - Project Dawn, here we come. (upbeat music) - Welcome to our special advisory event on this morning's non-stop flight from London Heathrow to Sydney, Australia. - Sydney! - Thank you so much guys.

Good luck. Thank you. See you later. - Good for you, thank you. See you next time. - Enjoy your flight. - Thanks thanks. - Thank you. - Thank you. Hello good morning! Breaking the final frontier of aviation, Qantas non-stop research flight from London to Sydney, here I come. - See you soon, bye! - Bye take care. - Hello, welcome aboard. - Hello hello. Good morning Good Morning. - Good morning, welcome aboard. - Today we are making history. - Absolutely, aviation history. - Non-stop to Australia, let's go! - Double dawn, ahead. - Departure from London today at 7:17 p.m.

Darkness when we left, bright sunshine in Sydney when we landed. - And today we will see double dawn. - Today we will see double sunrise. - Just to make history, hello five, Captain. - High five. (upbeat music) - It's now 5:40 a.m. I'm sitting in seat 8A and look at the pillow here. It says Qantas Research Flights. - Thank you very much, London. See you when we come back next time. Thank you. - Bye bye! - Bye bye! - We have to make the last door that has already been closed. - Come on. - If your seat is equipped with a restraint belt, be sure.

From the bag by pulling the tab. - Do you mind if I stop this for you? - Oh yeah, I forgot the shoulder strap. - Yes, it is a safety measure, like a safety seat. - Oh, like car seats, yeah. Thank you so much. - There you go. It will prevent you from doing so. - Everything safe. - Not that you'll need it at all. - Thank you. So now it's 6:00 a.m. m. So we backed away a few minutes early. We are heading towards the end of runway 27 left for the departure, and as you can see, it is still pitch black and slightly rainy. (engines whirring) We only have one takeoff there. 19 hours and 17 minutes to Australia non-stop.

In 1919, 100 years ago, it took 28 days from the UK to Australia. So today, we will reach there in 19 hours. And on today's flights, we will fly over the following countries, from England to the Netherlands, Germany, Poland, Belarus, Russia, Kazakhstan, China, the Philippines, Indonesia and then to Australia. - Hi sir. - Hello. - I just gave you the menu and there is also a little information here about the flight. - Thank you so much. - This historic event. There you go. - Thank you. - Sam, on this flight, we have closed the windows in the two front sections where our customers are seated because we did a test on this flight using the Charles Perkins method to get everyone into the Sydney time zone.

So, if you want to look out the window at the first sunrise, you can do so from the cabins further back. - This is the Captain. My name is Helen Trenerry. Also on the flight deck were First Officer Ryan Gill, Second Officer Chris Agnew and Second Officer Tegan Grey. So, in honor of their place in this epic adventure, we recognize the personnel who took part in the top-secret Double Sunrise flights that Qantas flew during the Second World War. These flights were under constant threat of attack by the Japanese and would fly up to 32 hours non-stop. The crew and their passengers would see two sunrises on their flights, giving them the title Double Sunrise Flights.

Today, as we leave London in the early hours of darkness, the first of our two sunrises is about to occur on the horizon to our east. - Beautiful, this is the magical moment of the day, the first sunrise we saw on this flight, just about 40 minutes after takeoff and while we were flying east. Most passengers in the forward cabin of this flight will acclimatise to the Sydney time zone, which is actually afternoon at 5:45 local time. (The door closes) I have put on some very comfortable and very recognizable pajamas, the big flying kangaroo. But this is not just a normal Qantas pajama, this is something special.

Let me show you why. It's a special Qantas research pajama. Here, let's do a recharge. I was drinking a lot of water on this flight. - Keep hydrated. (soft music) - This is great. All airlines should do this. This is a great idea, save the planet. If you are a traveler, bring your water bottle instead of using that plastic bottle. - We would like to do a little exercise, very simple things. So it will really give you a little bit of a boost in terms of oxygen in the body and also help get all the blood flow back.

So the first one will be just walking naturally. Just walk naturally. (soft music) simply stretch the side of your body. So try not to go too sideways. Try to stretch to the locker and you can be alert. So you are here alert. Just gentle, okay? It's not a competition. Five times. Now what we are going to do is stretch the ischial muscle here and the calves, which are the other muscle that is compressed when we sit for a long time. Then you can lift this leg. (soft music) One, two, three. Six, seven, eight, nine, 10. (group cheering) (group clapping) - How do you feel after exercising? - Oh, invigorated.

I don't know if I could do it twice though. - Could you do it, squat to Sydney, 19 hours? - So what we recommend right now are two different types of exercise. One is the seated exercise. So there are a number of movements that people can still do while sitting in the seat. - Sitting can also be an exercise. - Of course, we can imagine some exercise. - Can you show me the seated exercise? So you're lifting your heels. - Yes, and contracting the calf muscle. And this one, there's the other one where you lift your toes. - Raising the toes in the front. - And you can also do upper body exercises.

So you can squeeze, for example, squeeze. You can do stretches on one side. You can do it on the other side. Fold. - Ah, you can spin too. - You can get up yourself. - You left, oh, yes. - There are many things, and once people feel empowered to do it, they will find the exercise they like. - What we are wearing today is an active watch on our non-dominant hands, and this is a 24-hour monitor, and we will wear it for about 21 days. It also has the photometer, but it will also observe every movement we make.

It is downloaded to the computers and then they will be able to evaluate our rest times and our movement times. There is also another light meter here because they need to evaluate the light that enters our eyes. So we need to wear this somewhere between our eyes and our chest, and it continuously monitors the light that enters our eyes because that affects the levels of melatonin that we produce. Now, Helen, can you tell me how much fuel was carried from London to do this non-stop to Sydney? - In the flight plan today we needed 100 tons of fuel.

The takeoff weight of the plane is almost 235 tons. That's 235,000 kilograms. When we arrive in Sydney, we will land with about 137,000 kilograms. So we'll burn a good bit of fuel along the way, but today we'll be flying a very fuel-efficient flight and we have a lot of computers and performance engineers monitoring our fuel flow. - You could even carry more passengers. - We could have had more today, yes. We were about 20,000 kilos below our maximum takeoff weight. So we had a little more room for some bodies, but we couldn't get anyone on board in the terminal. - Very good, I guess it's too late for everyone to get on.

We're already taking off. Well, thank you very much Helena. - You're welcome, Sam. - You can see that the entire economy class behind me is empty, and also the premium economy class is also empty. All guests and passengers are seated at the front of the plane. Now, that creates a lot of space for people to walk here to do those exercises and stretch when necessary. And also, Qantas tells me that if Project Sunrise is launched and the new aircraft is chosen, economy class will be a much more spacious experience on long-haul flights like this. Everything on this flight is truly special and researched, even the food was specially customized for this flight to promote better well-being. - Here we have the roasted chicken broth with shiitake mushrooms, enoki, sweets and peas.

This is a high protein meal with high GI carbohydrates found in macaroni, and that will help everyone sleep. Comfort food that promotes the production of serotonin and melatonin. - Very healthy flight. There is no Coca-Cola, no Sprite, no soft drinks. - Without caffeine. - Only coconut water or this one called kombucha. And there are no spirits on board either. So it is a totally healthy flight. I think I'll lose some weight after landing. Good white bread. - Yes, it is special GI bread, which helps you fall asleep. -How about a delicious, healthy-looking soup? - Wow, a soup for breakfast, it's delicious, - Dinner. - Dinner. - It's actually dinner. - This is already a dinner, you're right. - In Sydney it's time for dinner. - We need to adjust our biological clock to Sydney time.

So this is dinner right now. - So this is the main course, the meat sandwich with roasted tomatoes, and this is to help support the sleep cycle of our passengers. - Steak sandwich, sir. - Thank you so much. - There you go. And one for you too, sir. - Thank you so much. - Enjoy. - This is the rose and vanilla cream with strawberries and pistachio and a strawberry jelly. And this is a milk-based dessert. So something that people traditionally give their children when they put them to sleep is a bottle of warm milk, and this is our version of a bottle of warm milk.

It's not warm, but it's delicious, delicious, and lightly sweetened. - Then it's better to have the seat. - Oh, this is a mattress. Oh, very cute, very soft, very luxurious. - It's thick. That's why it's best to have the seat in front of you before putting them on. - Oh, it's a cover. - So it covers well, and if you need to put the belt on it, it has one. - Oh, sure. - There is a special place for it to pass, but it does not have to be placed during the flight. So it means you can also have this on for takeoff and landing, which is good for customers who want to go to sleep.

With our. - Thank you. - Now you are ready to go to bed. Night night, time to sleep. It's time for us to turn off the lights. (soft music) - I just woke up. We are now halfway between London and Sydney, about 9 and a half hours to go. Just going to the kitchen, doing some exercise, stretching. - Now, on a traditional flight, we would have a large selection of snacks and items to choose from, a total weight of 1.5 tons for business class with food and equipment, but on this flight today, due to the duration and nature of the flight, we are limited to 900 kilos. - Weigh our watches, which look like a Casio from '84.

However, they are actually quite technological and quite advanced. They then measure the amount of light that reaches them. We also have alert tests. So during the flight, at several different intervals, we check how alert we are by doing an exercise on the iPad to test how quickly we respond to a set of data. Apart from that, we also keep a sleep diary, which shows how well we sleep. - Six hours to land in Sydney. Now the cabin light has come back on. It's breakfast time in Sydney and we've just been served a piccolo latte to wake us up and stimulate our breakfast palates.

I slept pretty well, six hours, and then I did some exercise, enjoyed a movie, an Aboriginal movie called "Jedda." It was a 1955 movie, and then I worked a little bit, writing the blog and writing about this flight. All the details will be shared with you (dinging) in the next video and on my blog. So there are actually quite a few passengers on this flight doing the reaction test and under investigation, and this is where I met David. - It's a reaction time machine. As soon as the numbers start to decrease, you must press the button. And at the end, it gives you a total score of how well you did. - Oh, so he's testing your reaction.

As soon as the number reaches a screen, tap. -Yes, it's 10 minutes long and changes length, so it gets very frustrating after 10 minutes. - Sometimes fast, sometimes slow. - Yes, try it. - I think, David, you're pretty good at this. - Oh, yes, I'm feeling very good. Practice makes perfect. - So this is the healthy breakfast plate, and it's full of roasted cauliflower with a spicy harissa dressing, a poached egg, and some watercress, and the idea of ​​this is to go along with the wake-up cycle. For that we use the spicy harissa dressing. - Mr. Jones, breakfast for you. - Good day. - Sorry for making you wait. - Not well. - You eat them all. - I could eat all of this. (Assistant laughing) - Now that magical moment is going to begin again.

Soon we will see the double sunrise, the second sunrise on this flight. We're over Ambon, Indonesia, at 41,000 feet right now, about five hours from Sydney from now. - At this point, now on the left side of the plane, you will see your second sunrise. And now we are all members of the rare and special Secret Order of the Double Dawn and pioneers of Project Dawn. A century ago, the Australian government challenged the

world

's top aviators to fly from Britain to Australia in less than 30 days. Brothers Captain Ross Smith and Lieutenant Keith Smith and their mechanics, Sergeants Wally Shiers and Jim Bennett took off in their modified Vickers Vimy bomber from the snow-covered Hounslow airfield in west London on the morning of 12 November 1919 .

About 135 hours of actual flight. Later on December 10, the four landed at Fannie Bay in Australia's Northern Territory, near Darwin, and shared a £10,000 prize. Their flight is considered one of the great feats of pioneering aviation in the

world

, and today we replicate that challenge in a flying machine that they could never have imagined and with only 19 hours of flight. - Hello Sam, my name is Chris Agnew, one of the second officers on board QF7879 from London to Sydney, and I would like to share with you something that is close to my heart. It's a photo of my grandfather who used to fly during World War II as an air-sea rescue pilot in Papua, New Guinea.

I carry it with me in my jacket pocket because I know how proud he was of me as a driver, and he unfortunately passed away just a couple of months ago, so he missed the news that I was driving this. flight. - Wow, Chris, that was so inspiring. I'm sure your grandfather is very, very proud of you. - Thank you. - So Chris, what is this you have with you? - So this here is a brain wave monitor. We are required to use it at all times when we are on the flight deck. So it actually just sits on our forehead, right behind our ears, on both sides.

Designed so that our headphones can sit comfortably in our ears and the microphone boom in front of our mouth without any obstacles. It measures our brain wave activities. - Alan, I want to ask you which plane do you think is more likely, the A350 or the 777X? - Then it will be pretty close. We have both aircraft still in competition. We are talking to both manufacturers. Both have pros and cons. So this will come down to the line. It will be until the last minute before we make a call. - Okay, do you think you'll make that call? - So our intention is that at the end of this calendar year, which is just a few weeks away, that way we will make a decision on whether we do Sunrise or not. - Oh, so there's a chance that dawn won't even happen? - There is.

I mean we still have some obstacles to overcome. The reason we're doing these test flights is so that our regulator allows us, to make sure we're comfortable, we have a duty period that can do a 21-hour flight, which you can't do today. . We are also talking to our unions about changing the employment contract to allow them to do this, and we are also looking at what the product and the final economic case looks like. And then he has to overcome the financial obstacles that we have set for him. And if that happens, then you'll probably see the sunrise in 2023. - The last question, as audiovisual technology experts, we always want to know what your favorite plane is, Alan. - My favorite airplane is the Boeing 747, and that's because.

You agree with me? - I agree. My favorite airplane is the 747. Tell me more. - That's because Qantas has a great history, as you probably already know. Next year, we will have flown every series of airplanes for 49 years: the 747-100, 200, 300, SP, 400, 400ER and the -8 as a freighter. So it's a piece of history. But unfortunately we will retire them next year. So it's going to be a very bittersweet moment because we're replacing them with super efficient planes like this, but I think they're still, in some ways, the queen of the sky. - I want to share with you a personal story.

When I was 13, I took a Qantas flight from Sydney to Melbourne, Qantas 9, 747-400, the first leg before continuing to Singapore and London, and I was a kid in the back. And the stewardess saw me. Within a few minutes, I was called and taken upstairs to the cockpit, and I was lucky enough to sit behind the pilots to watch my first takeoff with folding seats in the cockpit. Something I shouldn't tell the regulator is that my hand was under the captain's hand and we were pushing the 747-400's throttle into the engine during takeoff. So it was extraordinary.

I think this airplane shapes many people's love of aviation, including myself. - That's a great story. - Guys, I've got Richard Quest here on this Qantas 787 non-stop flight story. How's the flight going so far? - I'm impressed by how good I feel, and I think part of it is because of the excitement, because of people like you on board. Everyone is walking. Everyone is gossiping. Everyone is chatting about aviation. But also, there are not 200 people in the back. So there is no such thing as humanity. There is not the same movement, the cars go up and down, although in some cases they do.

And there is simply not the same feeling of pressure and overwhelm. I feel pretty good. By the way, we just crossed northern Australia, there at the top. - Oh, are we in Australia yet? - Yes, we are already there. We haven't actually crossed the main line, but it looks like it's actually connected, but. There is the coast of Australia. - Wow, excellent. Thank you very much Ricardo. - Sure. - We are passing Longreach on the left side of the plane. It is approximately 131 nautical miles away. It's 150 statute miles. The town is in the center of central Queensland.

Take a good look at it. It's in the distance. It will be very difficult to see. It's a pretty small town. This particular aircraft has been named Longreach in a nod to this Queensland town that was integral to our beginnings. Just FYI now, we have less than two hours to go. It looks like the touchdown time is 12:28 p.m. to Sydney, and we are currently 1,800 kilos of fuel ahead of what we should. This represents a saving of 1,800 kilos thanks to all the fuel optimization techniques that we have used on the plane. I hope you had a great night with us.

We will be busy shortly as we plan and begin our descent to Sydney. It will be a spectacular arrival. It's a wonderful day there, with sunny conditions. We have activated it for you. It will be very nice. - Hello Sam, welcome to the Double Sunrise club. - Oh thanks. - A very small, elite club that you have not joined. - This is great. Thank you so much. Watch this. - This is the original replica of the certificate they used to issue when Flight Boat services started. - Oh, the original this is a replication, oh wow. - Then, on the other side, you have the new one. - The new. - This is the contemporary. - Well, it's just an hour and a little more to get to Sydney.

I think you can recognize that this is the typical Australian outback landscape. The food I had for lunch was phenomenal. It was a great dish, a pasta with beef ragout. - Our draft today, heading towards Sydney from the west. We will turn right just before reaching the city of Sydney, descend south for a series of left turns and then land on runway 34, then head north. Landing time at this stage appears to be 12:28. We take this opportunity to thank you for joining us on such a special trip today. It has been an epic adventure for all of us.

We hope to catch it on the ground and enjoy all the revelry that such a flight entails. Thank you and good afternoon. - 78, 79, the threshold. The wind is three two zero degrees, one zero knots. That runway at 834 is clear for landing. (wind rumbling) (engine whirring) - (muffled speech) 879, congratulations on your flight. - What a great arrival to Sydney. This is a flight that makes history. In fact, I believe that this research flight will shape the future of aviation. I am very privileged to be on this flight and I actually feel great even flying after 19 hours. With the arrival, that is not the end yet.

This is just the beginning, the beginning of Qantas' centenary celebration. Stay tuned for more. (uplifting music) - We are waiting for you. Do you have any tissues? - Oh, this is very emotional. That's amazing. Thank you. - Fantastic, right? - Thank you, Adrienne, thank you. - Wow! - Well, I have been flying for 19 hours inside this great century-old Qantas plane. What a great livery. I just got off the plane and realized what a great decoration this plane has. (uplifting music) (group cheering) Cheers to Qantas 100, yes! (crowd cheering) (uplifting music)