AF1 range/route/refueling?

"Keith Willshaw" wrote:
| "Brett" wrote in message
| ...
|
| So the limit would be at least 24 hours and the number of relief
crews
| available.
|
|
|
| The crew changes took place at Bahrain and Singapore. If you assume
| 12 cabin crew for each sector going non stop would result in a need
| to lose space for another 24 people at least 12 of whom would need
| sleeping accomodation. This would be a massive overhead.

Would it be on an A380, there appears to be plenty of volume available.

| | | but in times gone by it has been used for civil aircraft. In
1939
| | | an Imperial Airways flying boat operated non stop across the
| | | North Atlantic being refuelled in mid air by a converted
Harrow
| | | bomber operated by Flight Refuelling Ltd.
| |
| | And within a month of the demonstration Britain was at war,
Imperial
| | Airways had been nationalized and the service was used for high
| priority
| | passengers/cargo where "cost" was not a major consideration.
| |
| |
| | The trials pre-dated the outbreak of war however
|
| By a month __On 5 August 1939, The Cabot, a Short C Class flying
boat,
| took off from Shannon, Ireland and received 1200 gallons of fuel
shortly
| after takeoff from an Armstrong Whitworth AW-23 tanker on its
Western
| flight to Botwood, Newfoundland. After a short ground refueling stop
at
| Botwood, the flight continued on to Montreal, Canada, and to its
| destination of New York City. On the Eastbound leg from Botwood, The
| Cabot received 1,200 gallons of fuel from a tanker based at Gander,
| Newfoundland. A total of sixteen crossings were made and the success
of
| these trials led to a decision to add two or three flying boats to
the
| service and continue operations in 1940.__
|
|
http://www.au.af.mil/au/database/pro...ugherty_sj.pdf
|
|
| So the pre-war trial was ajudged a success.

16 crossing consituted the trials and I doubt they were finished before
the start of WWII.

| | and the cost was
| | considered less than the alternatives which were limited.
|
| What was the cost of delivering 1200 gallons of fuel to an aircraft
in
| flight? What was the average cost for each passenger with and
without
| inflight refueling, how large a subsididy was the British Government
| willing to pay in peacetime/wartime, how much would a passenger be
| willing to pay in peacetime.
|
| Its quite true that seat price was not the driving factor it is now
| but I suspect that cost was still an issue and not having to land in
| nothern canadian waters in a flying boat was seen as a real plus.

Your description for landplanes included stops in Iceland, that probably
had sea conditions similar to those observed in Newfoundland (it didn't
become part of Canada until after the war).

| The data you provided indicates Imperial Airways considered the
| trial a success and were only prevented from extending the service
| by the outbreak of war.

That depends on how you read the data presented, they continued the
testing after the outbreak of war and extended the service during the
war.

| Then ask yourself what $19 per gallon would do what to the seat mile
| costs of a modern airliner (airlines get upset with 30 cent price
| variations).
|
|
| I dont recall advocating this as a policy today,

Your comment was "Today the limit with most civil aircraft is crew
endurance anyway". I don't believe would be a driving factor to either
the airlines or with enough rested relief crews available, with
government regulators.

| especially since modern
| aircraft can fly for extended periods without refuelling. Flying from
| London to Singapore non-stop takes around 12.5 hours and
| even if there was no need to refuel the aircraft there's a need at
that
| point to swap cabin crews (they already carry extra flight crew) and
| clean and re-supply the aircraft. I have been fortunate enough to
| have always made the trip in business class but I'm told the
| lavatories back in economy can be pretty grim by this point

I believe I referred to them as "cattle in the back" and your original
comment said they could endure 24 hours, it sounds like they get
refreshment and cleaning stops along the way.

| | Land planes
| | could stop in Iceland and Goosebay but in winter this wasnt an
| | option for flying boats.
|
| How attractive is Botwood in winter?
|
|
| Not very I'd imagine but both Pan American and Imperial airways
| used it pre-war and the RCAF operated Catalina from there
| during WW2

Compared with coastal Iceland?