I was one of the Boeing pilots on this record setting flight. 19 hours and 22 minutes block to block (and 10408 Nautical Miles)... The longest ETOPS endurance test flight ever!
Air Traffic Control was fantastic and very accommodating. - Thank you!
The airplane performed flawlessly. As a matter of fact - we didn't even top off the fuel tanks.
Awesome... I was afraid you guys were had to make a change last night, but we figured that it was FA not drawing the plan right (should have guessed that when I saw the bend in that southeast track
Hats off to a wonderful demonstration of you , your crew and to Boeing for a job well done, I tracked you for about 5 hours last night and shared it with a min of 200 of my friends-thanks
Original flight plan included the Boeing "Saturn" logo... wish I would have taken a screen shot of it (I checked in just after the wrapped up the "787"...).
Now it looks like they are just doing the "swoosh" part of the logo.
It's pretty neat to think that sites like FlightAware are what encourages these type of flights. Now there's someplace people can see the flight paths and the designs they make, it's almost as if FA inspired a new form of art!
Bob,I don't know about now but Guard used to be a some type of distress frequency and I would hear aircraft on it ever now and then that were experiencing some type of problem and glad to say most were minor.Never found out what Guard was but I figured that it was a frequency monitored by a lot of people and not dedicated to ops or atc only.If anyone knows let me know.
"Guard" is (was?)an emergency frequency (actually two, one UHF and one VHF) that air traffic facilities monitor. Some aircraft would also monitor it. It is usually used by aircraft in some form of distress not already in communications with ATC to establish communication and get help. As an example: A VFR pilot encountering IMC. Once it is safe to do so the aircraft is switched to a normal frequency. It is also used to monitor ELTs, however I think the new generation of ELTs now use a different system.
Just happened again. Pilot 1: xxxxx to Minneapolis Center. Pilot 2: On guard. Pilot 1: Oops. Caught the channel this time, 121.5 which is the emergency channel. Guess he forgot to change. Thanks very much.
Just looked at the track log of the Citation 750X - 664 mph at one point in level flight, is that for real.I would imagine so from what I have heard and read.That's amazing.Thanks to Daniel Baker for the link.
"Guard" is (was?) an emergency frequency (actually two, one UHF and one VHF) that air traffic facilities monitor. Some aircraft would also monitor it. It is usually used by aircraft in some form of distress not already in communications with ATC to establish communication and get help. As an example: A VFR pilot encountering IMC. Once it is safe to do so the aircraft is switched to a normal frequency. It is also used to monitor ELTs, however I think the new generation of ELTs now use a different system.
I often see contrails at weird angles overhead and wonder where they might be heading. I live in the middle of the little triangle shape to the right of the planet and orbit part. Now I know it is just some airplane company having one of their pilots put their logo on FlightAware.
Those radar tracks are ground speeds not air speeds. And as the aircraft gets lighter (from burning off the fuel), the air speeds for efficient flight profile reduce as well.
I could not for the life of me figure out what you all were doing up there. First squawking near SUX, then over FOD (where a few hours earlier, a KC-135R was feeding F16's) then the odd route back to O'Neil (when I finally satisfied my curiosity on FA). A few weeks ago I had heard some low alt photography over S. Dakota, but thought yesterday was a tad bit late for a few more shots in the same area.
"This wasn't a joy ride," explains Randy Tinseth, vice president of marketing for Boeing. "It was an 18-hour Maximum ETOPS (Extended Operations) Duration flight test for a 787-8 with GE engines."
This is the "Boeing" logo by law, but I will always see McDonnell Douglas when I see it. Boeing was just lucky enough it grandfather in when MD was absorbed by them. As for the 787....go man go~
While this is a great technological feat of Boeing, it is wasteful! I can not imagine how many pounds of jet fuel this took, to accomplish. Is that what Boeing wants to communicate to its public? This is not the 1930's, and Boeing is not Howard Hughes, making unnecessary long flights to prove a point.
It was an ETOPS endurance test flight (part of the aircraft's certification process). Very clearly stated in the post IMMEDIATELY below by one of Boeing T&E member.
This flight is part of the cert testing for the GEnx powered version. They need to get the flight hours in anyway, so they may as well make it interesting.
And something for me to look at during my 12-hour shift. Even with my 1.5-hour drive home, I'll be asleep hours before they touch down. My boss is an ex-747 pilot, and he found this quite interesting.
Having stood under a 747-800F powered by those babies...in a calm night with little ambient noise (traffic)...impressively quiet. 3,000 and "Cathay Pacific Cargo" turned on final.
Air Traffic Control was fantastic and very accommodating. - Thank you!
The airplane performed flawlessly. As a matter of fact - we didn't even top off the fuel tanks.
Karsten
Boeing Test and Evaluation