Over the Poles Flight
 

I had a question, and I would like to know if you could help me.

....back in October 1977, Pan Am flight 50 flew from SFO to LWT to CPT to AUCKLAND and back to SFO

They did it in 54 hours and 7 minutes.

If that flight on the same route, over both Poles, was to take place today, on a commercial airliner, which aircraft would be the most efficient to do it, and, could it make in less time?

Thank you very much

Jose

Boeing 787. Some might quibble about the meaning of efficiency here, but the -800 would use less fuel, while the -900 would generate lower cost ASMs.

Joe

Gotta run them IRU's in "TRUE" versus Mag and don't forget to monitor your fuel temps. "Fuel Freeze" is an issue for long flights over the poles.

Does the 787 have fuel recirculyion to send warmed fuel back to the tanks? Worked great on the Global.

gf

Actually, all IRS and GPS units only think in True. They can display Magnetic if the pilot chooses by consulting an internal database of Lat Long magnetic variation.

On the 747-400, if you left the Mag/True switch in Mag, the display switched over to true automatically at around 80 North while heading north, and then switched back to Mag when you got back down to around 80 North on the southbound leg.

Joe