4 ms·

What _was_ the routing and speed? That was my very first question and the blog post doesn't really answer it. How much of the flight was supersonic? They talk

What _was_ the routing and speed? That was my very first question and the blog post doesn't really answer it. How much of the flight was supersonic? They talk about avoiding India for the BAH-SIN leg, and trouble over Saudi Arabia, but there's a lotta populated land between BAH-LHR. The flight listing says this: SIN-BAH: 3698 miles, 4 hrs 6 mins, Mach 2.02 cruising speed BAH-LHR: 3120 miles, 4 hrs 21 mins, Mach 2.02 cruising speed Those numbers just don't make sense. That's 130 miles short of the great circle distance from SIN-BAH of 3935 miles. And then they talked about adding another 200 miles to go around India. So assuming the flight time itself is accurate, that leg should be: SIN-BAH: 4135 miles, 4 hrs 6 mins, Mach 1.3 average speed But how much of that time _could_ be spent at the listed cruising speed? Mach 2 will travel 4135 in miles in just over 2.5 hours! So we're looking at less than half the flight spent in supersonic — and this is the leg that's mostly over the Indian Ocean. The BAH-LHR leg is even trickier. Anyhow, it's little wonder that a direct non-stop is near the Concorde's time with these restrictions and the refueling stop.

FabHK 3y ago
> Those numbers just don't make sense. That's 130 miles short of the great circle distance from SIN-BAH of 3935 miles. In an aviation context, those are most likely nautical miles (equivalent to 1 minute of a degree in north-south direction, which is why 10,000 km (initially defined as the distance from the equator to the pole) is basically 5,400 NM (90 degrees from the equator to the pole, times 60 minutes/degree)) rather than statute miles, which are some certain number of yards and feet in that quaint customary system used still used by some people in the USA, Liberia, and Myanmar. Indeed, according to the interweb, the distance between Singapore (Singapore Changi Airport) and Manama (Bahrain International Airport) is 3935 miles / 6333 kilometers / 3420 nautical miles.
- mbauman 3y ago
  Aha, of course! OK, if those are nautical miles this does make much more sense — 3698nm is 280 nautical miles (320 miles) longer than the great circle route. It's a bit longer than the naive calculation I made — increasing the average speed (and time at cruise) a little bit, too. Then the BAH-LHR leg is more interesting too — its great circle route is 2754 nm, so they're going 366 nm (420 miles) out of their way. Their listed distance is approximately what it'd be if they routed through the Mediterranean over Malta. https://www.greatcirclemap.com/?routes=BAH-LHR%2C%20BAH-MLA-LHR&unit=nm https://www.greatcirclemap.com/?routes=BAH-LHR%2C%20BAH-MLA-...

FabHK 3y ago

> Those numbers just don't make sense. That's 130 miles short of the great circle distance from SIN-BAH of 3935 miles. In an aviation context, those are most likely nautical miles (equivalent to 1 minute of a degree in north-south direction, which is why 10,000 km (initially defined as the distance from the equator to the pole) is basically 5,400 NM (90 degrees from the equator to the pole, times 60 minutes/degree)) rather than statute miles, which are some certain number of yards and feet in that quaint customary system used still used by some people in the USA, Liberia, and Myanmar. Indeed, according to the interweb, the distance between Singapore (Singapore Changi Airport) and Manama (Bahrain International Airport) is 3935 miles / 6333 kilometers / 3420 nautical miles.

mbauman 3y ago
Aha, of course! OK, if those are nautical miles this does make much more sense — 3698nm is 280 nautical miles (320 miles) longer than the great circle route. It's a bit longer than the naive calculation I made — increasing the average speed (and time at cruise) a little bit, too. Then the BAH-LHR leg is more interesting too — its great circle route is 2754 nm, so they're going 366 nm (420 miles) out of their way. Their listed distance is approximately what it'd be if they routed through the Mediterranean over Malta. https://www.greatcirclemap.com/?routes=BAH-LHR%2C%20BAH-MLA-LHR&unit=nm https://www.greatcirclemap.com/?routes=BAH-LHR%2C%20BAH-MLA-...