A350-1000ULR Flies Direct From Melbourne to Toulouse

An Airbus A350/1000 ULR set the record for longest flight by distance by an airliner with a marathon 24 hour and 23 minute non-stop from Melbourne, Australia to Toulouse France last week. The flight covered 12,503 nautical miles and there were five pilots among the 13 people onboard. The occupants saw two sunrises and two sunsets on the eastward trek that took them over the Pacific before crossing North America and over southern Greenland before touching down just before 10 a.m. local time.

The flight was not a PR stunt. It was an operational test flight for Qantas Airlines’ Project Sunrise and was done to simulate the longest possible flight with passengers on the aircraft. To accomplish that it had to stay in the air at least 23 hours. Qantas has bought 12 of this variant of the A350 with an extra fuel tank in the rear of the fuselage to conduct direct flights between Sydney and both London and New York. First deliveries of the plane will take place next spring and the ultra long commercial flights will start later in the year.

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