New airliner sets record flying 24 hrs nonstop from Australia to France

> The flight from Melbourne back to Toulouse covered 12,460 nautical miles in total, according to Airbus.

> To handle such ultra long-range flights, Airbus describes the aircraft as being equipped with an extra rear center fuel tank capable of carrying 20,900 liters (5,521 gallons). That extends the aircraft range by 1,000 nautical miles to ensure it can cover the nearly 10,000 nautical miles for the nonstop flights between Sydney and either London or New York.

How did they bridge the gap of 2460 nautical miles?

	▲	protocolture 14 hours ago \| parent [-]
		>By comparison, Qantas Airways expects the maximum Project Sunrise flight time with the new Airbus A350-1000ULR to be 21 hours and 40 minutes during commercial flights between Sydney and New York or London—more than enough to set a new world record. The latest test flight certainly surpassed that benchmark. I am guessing that a test with minimal self loading cargo will need to go further. With <some tons> more cargo it will go <predictably shorter distance> Or in other words, it went further than the rating because it was unloaded. Just a guess, mostly to provoke the real aerospace engineers into commenting.

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hn_throwaway_99 14 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Did the return flight from Melbourne to Toulouse go "the long way around" by flying over the Pacific and Atlantic instead of the shorter westward route just for test purposes?

	▲	manarth 14 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Taking the record away from Boeing might also have been a factor