5 ms·

Currently there are aircraft able to fly that distance without stopovers. That wasn't the case in 70s, including Concorde. Modern version of Concorde that would

Currently there are aircraft able to fly that distance without stopovers. That wasn't the case in 70s, including Concorde. Modern version of Concorde that would have the necessary range for that flight would do Heathrow to Singapore in 5-6 h.

dredmorbius 3y ago
Routing in the 1970s (and until at least 1992) would also likely have been far longer, with most Soviet and Eastern European airspace closed to Western flights. Whether the lack of non-stop service was on account of routing and range or of lack of sufficient travel demand I don't know. Current routing appears to traverse Pland, Ukraine, Russia, Georgia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India. I could see much of that not being advisable in the 1970s. <https://www.airportia.com/flight-img/7760680/sq308-sin-lhr-sq-sia.jpg https://www.airportia.com/flight-img/7760680/sq308-sin-lhr-s...>
- eigenket 3y ago
  Plenty of that isn't advisable now. I flew Frankfurt to Singapore at the end of 2022 and we flew over the south side of the Black Sea to avoid Ukrainian and Russian airspace. We also avoided Afghanistan and flew over Iran instead which slightly surprised me. Looks like London-Singapore flights do the same https://www.flightradar24.com/data/flights/sq305#3437e32f https://www.flightradar24.com/data/flights/sq305#3437e32f
  - lxgr 3y ago
    It's less the airlines being cautious (like they finally started being over Ukraine, but not until MH17): Russia has just closed their airspace to most Western airlines (and vice versa). This leads to sometimes quite extreme differences in travel times between two cities depending on whether a Western or e.g. Chinese airline are conducting the flight (e.g. London-Shanghai), since Chinese airlines can still overfly both Europe and Russia.
    - eigenket 3y ago
      Singapore Airlines (who I flew with) wasn't barred from Russian airspace but they have decided to voluntarily avoid it.
      - eastbound 3y ago
        Another thing into play are the airspace fees. It’s a substantial income for Russia. It’s possible that some airlines estimate that they are too high, just out of economic factors and not political factors. https://simpleflying.com/russia-overflight-charge-hike/ https://simpleflying.com/russia-overflight-charge-hike/ They skyrocketed (pun intended) by 20% just in 2023, amount to $1.7bn and are justified by the radar and route operators, and by the …security provided by the Russian army. After downing the MH317, many airlines avoided the Ukrainian airspace… in profit of the (unavoidable?) Russian one, further benefiting Russia for this horrible crime. Killing those people may even have provided more revenue to Russia.
    - kccqzy 3y ago
      Oh yes, a while ago the Chinese airline Air China wanted to fly from New York to Beijing over Russian airspace (the shortest path does involve Russian airspace) but the U.S. government prohibited them from doing that as a matter of fairness. The end result is that the Chinese airline had to operate a domestic flight from New York to Los Angeles in order to fly to Beijing. https://viewfromthewing.com/air-china-has-filed-to-fly-new-york-to-los-angeles/ https://viewfromthewing.com/air-china-has-filed-to-fly-new-y...
      - chimeracoder 3y ago
        > The end result is that the Chinese airline had to operate a domestic flight from New York to Los Angeles in order to fly to Beijing. This isn't unheard-of. Qantas does (or used to) do this as well, running SYD-LAX-JFK, for efficiency reasons. Cabotage laws prohibit 081/CCA from carrying any passengers on the domestic leg of that route except the ones that are booked on the international leg of the journey as well. So it's not like you can just book a flight with them domestically.
- khuey 3y ago
  That's clearly not the actual route aircraft are taking since it flies directly over the warzone in eastern Ukraine.
  - dredmorbius 3y ago
    "Appears" is doing some heavy lifting in my comment, and was there for a reason. If you know of a more representational route I'd appreciate your sharing it. My previous link was based on a search for London-Singapore air routes. Hrm ... I suppose FlightAware or FlightRadar24 might show this, and yes, it does. BA21 seems to fly over Russia per FlightAware: <https://www.flightaware.com/live/flight/BAW21 https://www.flightaware.com/live/flight/BAW21> SIA308 flies a more southerly route, crossing the Black Sea and Turkey rather than overlying Ukraine, and conspicuously avoiding Afghan airspace: <https://www.flightaware.com/live/flight/SIA308 https://www.flightaware.com/live/flight/SIA308>
    - rootusrootus 3y ago
      > BA21 seems to fly over Russia per FlightAware: "ARRIVED OVER 11 YEARS AGO"
      - dredmorbius 3y ago
        Good call, I was relying on a search for flights and didn't check to see if that was current. BA11 seems to be among British Airways current LHR->SIN offerings. Here's yesterday's flight path, which largely resembles Singapore Airways. Flight time 13h15m. <https://www.flightaware.com/live/flight/BAW11/history/20240303/1905Z/EGLL/WSSS https://www.flightaware.com/live/flight/BAW11/history/202403...>
- diggan 3y ago
  > Current routing appears to traverse Pland, Ukraine, Russia, Georgia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India. I could see much of that not being advisable in the 1970s. When I flew from Helsinki, Finland to Hong Kong this summer, the plane avoided flying through Russian airspace, so not sure it's much better now than in the 70s, for some routes at least. "Avoiding Russian airspace: From a shortcut to a detour" - https://www.finnair.com/en/bluewings/world-of-finnair/avoiding-russian-airspace--from-a-shortcut-to-a-detour-2553644 https://www.finnair.com/en/bluewings/world-of-finnair/avoidi... > On Monday 28 February 2022 Russia closed its airspace as a countermeasure to EU airspace closure. This meant many changes to Finnair’s Asian services, as most of Finnair’s flights between Europe and Asia have used the shortest, fastest, and most environmentally sound route over Russia.
- rixrax 3y ago
  Given russias current trajectory with their war of genocide against Ukraine[0], it is not foreseeable that any western commercial airlines would be able to fly in their airspace for years to come[1]. [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_crimes_in_the_Russian_invasion_of_Ukraine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_crimes_in_the_Russian_inva... [1]https://www.npr.org/2023/03/18/1162659715/russian-53rd-anti-aircraft-missile-brigade-ukraine-mh17 https://www.npr.org/2023/03/18/1162659715/russian-53rd-anti-...
- mrtksn 3y ago
  That's just marketing image some graphic designer made. For the actual current route, check the flight tracking services like this: https://planefinder.net/data/flight/SQ305/history/4-48720917 https://planefinder.net/data/flight/SQ305/history/4-48720917 So, it's UK->Belgium->Germany->Czechia->Austria->Hungary->Romania->Bulgaria->Turkey->Iran->Pakistan->India->Malaysia->Singapore
ponector 3y ago
But Concorde was able to fly fast only over the uninhabited surface like ocean. And on the route from London to Singapore how much of that? A third?
- elevaet 3y ago
  Only a small portion of the direct route flies over the Indian ocean, the rest is basically over land: https://www.airportia.com/flight-img/7760680/sq308-sin-lhr-sq-sia.jpg https://www.airportia.com/flight-img/7760680/sq308-sin-lhr-s...
  - jnaina 3y ago
    I remember, when I was a kid, hearing a thunderous roar and rushing outside, and saw the Concorde with the Singapore Airlines livery, flying overhead. Left an impression. Not the usual flight path, as I was living in the central part of Singapore at that time. Assuming it was an one-off for testing purposes.
amelius 3y ago
Is it more economical to carry all that weight in fuel versus having stopovers? Or is this a tradeoff of time versus climate, where time won?
- MR4D 3y ago
  Refueling is very wasteful - that's why so many flights are direct today - because it's much cheaper.
  - ghaff 3y ago
    I'm sure that's true although I don't know how the numbers pencil out. That said, people also much prefer non-stop flights because of time, hassle, and reduced likelihood of something going wrong.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - cycomanic 3y ago
      That's not quite true AFAIK at least a couple of years ago the super long routes (18+h) were served in business class only because not enough customers wanted to do such a long flight in economy.
      - ghaff 3y ago
        That's mostly not true as far as I've seen because most trans-pacific flyers are not willing/able to spend thousands of additional $ to fly in business class.
      - papertokyo 3y ago
        Another factor besides comfort is that they can extend the flight time 1-2 hours by having fewer passengers and bags onboard, which of course means premium seats like SQ23/24. Qantas is planning to launch 18–21 hour routes in 2026 with economy class, using modified A350-1000 with an extra fuel tank in the hold.
globular-toast 3y ago
Is this also assuming the "modern Concorde" wouldn't do a sonic boom and could therefore fly supersonic over land?
wkat4242 3y ago
Hmm I wonder. A modern Concorde might be more spacious and better pressurised but much faster than Mach 2 is going to be very difficult due to higher speeds needing incrementally more energy and generating more heat. Supercruising at Mach 2 is a huge accomplishment and I don't think there's any aircraft in operation that can still do that. Jetfighters can do it while afterburning but it is impossible to reach Singapore that way. I just don't see a supercruising aircraft being possible at Mach 3.
- KptMarchewa 3y ago
  The speed gains would be due to lack of stopovers, assuming higher range, not due to higher airspeed.
  - wkat4242 3y ago
    Ah I see. True, a lot of advancements have been made in fuel efficiency indeed. Sorry I misunderstood your comment.
- tengwar2 3y ago
  I'm not clear what you mean by "better pressurised"? If you mean the cabin altitude, one of the advantages of Concorde was that the cabin had a lower cabin altitude than other airliners, then or now. Concorde cruising supersonic on dry power was apparently due to the variable intake ramps (https://www.heritageconcorde.com/air-in-take-system https://www.heritageconcorde.com/air-in-take-system), which presented compressed subsonic air to the compressors at supersonic speeds, bypassing excess air. This reduced the work that the compressors had to do, avoiding the surge issues with the J-58 which the A-12 family of aircraft ran in to. There is probably a bit of stretch there, as Concorde was limited by airframe temperature, but the temperature of the compressed intake would probably be the next limitation. As far as I know, Concorde was the only supersonic-native aircraft, with best range being achieved at M1.4.

dredmorbius 3y ago

Routing in the 1970s (and until at least 1992) would also likely have been far longer, with most Soviet and Eastern European airspace closed to Western flights. Whether the lack of non-stop service was on account of routing and range or of lack of sufficient travel demand I don't know. Current routing appears to traverse Pland, Ukraine, Russia, Georgia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India. I could see much of that not being advisable in the 1970s. <https://www.airportia.com/flight-img/7760680/sq308-sin-lhr-sq-sia.jpg https://www.airportia.com/flight-img/7760680/sq308-sin-lhr-s...>

eigenket 3y ago
Plenty of that isn't advisable now. I flew Frankfurt to Singapore at the end of 2022 and we flew over the south side of the Black Sea to avoid Ukrainian and Russian airspace. We also avoided Afghanistan and flew over Iran instead which slightly surprised me. Looks like London-Singapore flights do the same https://www.flightradar24.com/data/flights/sq305#3437e32f https://www.flightradar24.com/data/flights/sq305#3437e32f
- lxgr 3y ago
  It's less the airlines being cautious (like they finally started being over Ukraine, but not until MH17): Russia has just closed their airspace to most Western airlines (and vice versa). This leads to sometimes quite extreme differences in travel times between two cities depending on whether a Western or e.g. Chinese airline are conducting the flight (e.g. London-Shanghai), since Chinese airlines can still overfly both Europe and Russia.
  - eigenket 3y ago
    Singapore Airlines (who I flew with) wasn't barred from Russian airspace but they have decided to voluntarily avoid it.
    - eastbound 3y ago
      Another thing into play are the airspace fees. It’s a substantial income for Russia. It’s possible that some airlines estimate that they are too high, just out of economic factors and not political factors. https://simpleflying.com/russia-overflight-charge-hike/ https://simpleflying.com/russia-overflight-charge-hike/ They skyrocketed (pun intended) by 20% just in 2023, amount to $1.7bn and are justified by the radar and route operators, and by the …security provided by the Russian army. After downing the MH317, many airlines avoided the Ukrainian airspace… in profit of the (unavoidable?) Russian one, further benefiting Russia for this horrible crime. Killing those people may even have provided more revenue to Russia.
  - kccqzy 3y ago
    Oh yes, a while ago the Chinese airline Air China wanted to fly from New York to Beijing over Russian airspace (the shortest path does involve Russian airspace) but the U.S. government prohibited them from doing that as a matter of fairness. The end result is that the Chinese airline had to operate a domestic flight from New York to Los Angeles in order to fly to Beijing. https://viewfromthewing.com/air-china-has-filed-to-fly-new-york-to-los-angeles/ https://viewfromthewing.com/air-china-has-filed-to-fly-new-y...
    - chimeracoder 3y ago
      > The end result is that the Chinese airline had to operate a domestic flight from New York to Los Angeles in order to fly to Beijing. This isn't unheard-of. Qantas does (or used to) do this as well, running SYD-LAX-JFK, for efficiency reasons. Cabotage laws prohibit 081/CCA from carrying any passengers on the domestic leg of that route except the ones that are booked on the international leg of the journey as well. So it's not like you can just book a flight with them domestically.
khuey 3y ago
That's clearly not the actual route aircraft are taking since it flies directly over the warzone in eastern Ukraine.
- dredmorbius 3y ago
  "Appears" is doing some heavy lifting in my comment, and was there for a reason. If you know of a more representational route I'd appreciate your sharing it. My previous link was based on a search for London-Singapore air routes. Hrm ... I suppose FlightAware or FlightRadar24 might show this, and yes, it does. BA21 seems to fly over Russia per FlightAware: <https://www.flightaware.com/live/flight/BAW21 https://www.flightaware.com/live/flight/BAW21> SIA308 flies a more southerly route, crossing the Black Sea and Turkey rather than overlying Ukraine, and conspicuously avoiding Afghan airspace: <https://www.flightaware.com/live/flight/SIA308 https://www.flightaware.com/live/flight/SIA308>
  - rootusrootus 3y ago
    > BA21 seems to fly over Russia per FlightAware: "ARRIVED OVER 11 YEARS AGO"
    - dredmorbius 3y ago
      Good call, I was relying on a search for flights and didn't check to see if that was current. BA11 seems to be among British Airways current LHR->SIN offerings. Here's yesterday's flight path, which largely resembles Singapore Airways. Flight time 13h15m. <https://www.flightaware.com/live/flight/BAW11/history/20240303/1905Z/EGLL/WSSS https://www.flightaware.com/live/flight/BAW11/history/202403...>
diggan 3y ago
> Current routing appears to traverse Pland, Ukraine, Russia, Georgia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India. I could see much of that not being advisable in the 1970s. When I flew from Helsinki, Finland to Hong Kong this summer, the plane avoided flying through Russian airspace, so not sure it's much better now than in the 70s, for some routes at least. "Avoiding Russian airspace: From a shortcut to a detour" - https://www.finnair.com/en/bluewings/world-of-finnair/avoiding-russian-airspace--from-a-shortcut-to-a-detour-2553644 https://www.finnair.com/en/bluewings/world-of-finnair/avoidi... > On Monday 28 February 2022 Russia closed its airspace as a countermeasure to EU airspace closure. This meant many changes to Finnair’s Asian services, as most of Finnair’s flights between Europe and Asia have used the shortest, fastest, and most environmentally sound route over Russia.
rixrax 3y ago
Given russias current trajectory with their war of genocide against Ukraine[0], it is not foreseeable that any western commercial airlines would be able to fly in their airspace for years to come[1]. [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_crimes_in_the_Russian_invasion_of_Ukraine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_crimes_in_the_Russian_inva... [1]https://www.npr.org/2023/03/18/1162659715/russian-53rd-anti-aircraft-missile-brigade-ukraine-mh17 https://www.npr.org/2023/03/18/1162659715/russian-53rd-anti-...
mrtksn 3y ago
That's just marketing image some graphic designer made. For the actual current route, check the flight tracking services like this: https://planefinder.net/data/flight/SQ305/history/4-48720917 https://planefinder.net/data/flight/SQ305/history/4-48720917 So, it's UK->Belgium->Germany->Czechia->Austria->Hungary->Romania->Bulgaria->Turkey->Iran->Pakistan->India->Malaysia->Singapore

ponector 3y ago

But Concorde was able to fly fast only over the uninhabited surface like ocean. And on the route from London to Singapore how much of that? A third?

elevaet 3y ago
Only a small portion of the direct route flies over the Indian ocean, the rest is basically over land: https://www.airportia.com/flight-img/7760680/sq308-sin-lhr-sq-sia.jpg https://www.airportia.com/flight-img/7760680/sq308-sin-lhr-s...
- jnaina 3y ago
  I remember, when I was a kid, hearing a thunderous roar and rushing outside, and saw the Concorde with the Singapore Airlines livery, flying overhead. Left an impression. Not the usual flight path, as I was living in the central part of Singapore at that time. Assuming it was an one-off for testing purposes.

amelius 3y ago

Is it more economical to carry all that weight in fuel versus having stopovers? Or is this a tradeoff of time versus climate, where time won?

MR4D 3y ago
Refueling is very wasteful - that's why so many flights are direct today - because it's much cheaper.
- ghaff 3y ago
  I'm sure that's true although I don't know how the numbers pencil out. That said, people also much prefer non-stop flights because of time, hassle, and reduced likelihood of something going wrong.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - cycomanic 3y ago
    That's not quite true AFAIK at least a couple of years ago the super long routes (18+h) were served in business class only because not enough customers wanted to do such a long flight in economy.
    - ghaff 3y ago
      That's mostly not true as far as I've seen because most trans-pacific flyers are not willing/able to spend thousands of additional $ to fly in business class.
    - papertokyo 3y ago
      Another factor besides comfort is that they can extend the flight time 1-2 hours by having fewer passengers and bags onboard, which of course means premium seats like SQ23/24. Qantas is planning to launch 18–21 hour routes in 2026 with economy class, using modified A350-1000 with an extra fuel tank in the hold.

globular-toast 3y ago

Is this also assuming the "modern Concorde" wouldn't do a sonic boom and could therefore fly supersonic over land?

wkat4242 3y ago

Hmm I wonder. A modern Concorde might be more spacious and better pressurised but much faster than Mach 2 is going to be very difficult due to higher speeds needing incrementally more energy and generating more heat. Supercruising at Mach 2 is a huge accomplishment and I don't think there's any aircraft in operation that can still do that. Jetfighters can do it while afterburning but it is impossible to reach Singapore that way. I just don't see a supercruising aircraft being possible at Mach 3.

KptMarchewa 3y ago
The speed gains would be due to lack of stopovers, assuming higher range, not due to higher airspeed.
- wkat4242 3y ago
  Ah I see. True, a lot of advancements have been made in fuel efficiency indeed. Sorry I misunderstood your comment.
tengwar2 3y ago
I'm not clear what you mean by "better pressurised"? If you mean the cabin altitude, one of the advantages of Concorde was that the cabin had a lower cabin altitude than other airliners, then or now. Concorde cruising supersonic on dry power was apparently due to the variable intake ramps (https://www.heritageconcorde.com/air-in-take-system https://www.heritageconcorde.com/air-in-take-system), which presented compressed subsonic air to the compressors at supersonic speeds, bypassing excess air. This reduced the work that the compressors had to do, avoiding the surge issues with the J-58 which the A-12 family of aircraft ran in to. There is probably a bit of stretch there, as Concorde was limited by airframe temperature, but the temperature of the compressed intake would probably be the next limitation. As far as I know, Concorde was the only supersonic-native aircraft, with best range being achieved at M1.4.