Intellectual Air: Long-Haul Qantas Flight Is A Research Lab With Wings

Late in the evening on Friday, Oct. 18, 49 passengers and crew boarded a Qantas flight in New York City. Nineteen hours and 16 minutes later they landed in Sydney. The world’s longest nonstop commercial flight had successfully concluded.

In what Qantas has dubbed Project Sunrise, the Australian airliner covered more than 10,000 miles of land and sea and crossed 15 time zones. And although pilots were flying a 787-9 Dreamliner passenger jet that can seat 236 travelers, the plane was only a third full, as this was not a regular service launch.