Antarctic

cowboyBuilder

Hi,
Just looking at FR24 there a few days back and saw a Dubai-San Francisco Emirates direct flight (15 hours - must be worlds longest) , it was an A388 and it went right over the north pole, I know all transatlantic flights veer to the Arctic circle as it's shortest path on the globe, but had never seen a live route - then it got me thinking about Antarctic, and looking at a globe Sydney-Buenas Aires should go right over the south pole, but didn't see any on FR24 since.

Then I see there is a lot of scientific tests with balloons at high altitude over the Antarctic, do commercial aircraft stay away from this area for this reason ?

OR maybe it's too remote for emergency landings etc...

Tenger

cowboyBuilder wrote: »

........
Then I see there is a lot of scientific tests with balloons at high altitude over the Antarctic, do commercial aircraft stay away from this area for this reason ?

OR maybe it's too remote for emergency landings etc...

Load up Google earth (or similar) zoom out and turn the globe so the North Pole is centered, look at the countries close to the Pole.Now do the same for the South Pole.....its a lot more isolated.

In addition, over the Arctic is a more efficient route for DXB-SFO. I can't think of any routes were over the South Pole would be more efficient.

Second Toughest in_the Freshers

Perth - Santiago, or Auckland - Cape Town would go close

Enduro

Air NZ did once do tourist flights over the Antartic, but that didn't end well (DC-10 CFIT, IIRC)

knucklehead6

Enduro wrote: »

Air NZ did once do tourist flights over the Antartic, but that didn't end well (DC-10 CFIT, IIRC)

Mount Erebus, Air New Zealand flight 901

cowboyBuilder

I would have thought Sydney-Santiago/Buenos Aires would be bang over the south pole ...

martinsvi

if you look up ETOPS it will give you a rough idea why flights over Antarctica are not feasible. Quick look at the skyvector shows it would be around 6000 NM journey with nowhere to land should something go wrong. At groundspeed of 450 kt, that will take about 13h to cross. So that means if at mid point your engine dies, you have to fly at lower altitude and higher fuel burn for at least 6.5 hours. There is no two engine airliner which would be certified to do this.

Although ETOPS only apply to 2 engine aircraft, I think even a 747 or a380 would struggle if you think about it - 13 hours is just coast to coast, but when you're looking at mayor cities you can easily be looking at 16 hour journies stretching the range of the aircraft to an absolute maximum without room for any errors. Loosing an engine half way across will still make you descend and burn a bit more fuel even on a 4 engine aircraft so I'd say the risk is too great

cowboyBuilder

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polar_route

Few airlines fly between cities having a great circle route over Antarctica. Direct flights between South Africa and New Zealand would overfly Antarctica, but no airline has scheduled such flights. LAN Airlines flies nonstop between Auckland, Sydney and Santiago, Air New Zealand flies nonstop between Auckland and Buenos Aires starting December 1 2015, and Qantas flies nonstop between Sydney and Santiago, the most southerly polar route. Depending on winds, these reach 55 degrees south latitude, but other times 71 degrees, which is enough to cross the polar ice cap.[19]I][URL="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:NOTRS"]better source needed[/URL][/I
Depending on the winds, the Qantas flight QF 63 from Sydney to Johannesburg sometimes flies over the Antarctic Circle to latitude 71 degrees as well and allowing views of the icecap.[20]

martinsvi

cowboyBuilder wrote: »

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polar_route

if you look at the actual flight in question (Air New Zealand or ANZ 30), you can hardly call it a polar route, it doesn't really go over Antarctica

https://uk.flightaware.com/live/flight/ANZ30

PinOnTheRight

Great Circle Mapper site is handy to use.

http://www.gcmap.com/

There used to be special rules regarding flying below 72 degrees latitude, specifying survival equipment that had to be carried. Not sure if the regulations still exists.


Incidentally, Air New Zealand recently got 330mins ETOPS approval on their 777-300ERs. That pretty much covers most of the globe apart from a section of Antartica
http://www.gcmap.com/mapui?MS=wls&DU=mi&E=330&EV=450&EU=kts

arubex

martinsvi wrote: »

Although ETOPS only apply to 2 engine aircraft,

Incidentally ETOPS now applies to all new and variant airliners regardless of number of engines*; the 747-8i was the first quad certificated under ETOPS.


* except freighters with three or more engines.

cowboyBuilder

There is a flight in the air now from ALK-EZE (Auckland-Buenos Aires) (NZ30) but can't track it, seems it's out of ranger for FR..

pity ..

snubbleste

I posted in the FR thread about a Gulfstream flying Ush-Syd..

On this video, it seems to say 72 S is the limit

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TqWmjtbGs-M

cowboyBuilder

https://www.flightradar24.com/ANZ30/8a33435

Route there too, didn't go as far south as I thought ..

cowboyBuilder

For the Arctic they can go right up to 90 right ?

They are never too far out of range ..

Gaoth Laidir

This is the great circle route from AKL-EZE.

http://www.gcmap.com/mapui?P=akl-eze&MS=wls&MP=o&MC=60S150W&DU=mi

Here is NZ30's actual filed route, plotted on Skyvector.com

snubbleste

Do they go further south on the westbound route?
https://www.flightradar24.com/ANZ31/8b137cf