NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
From: David C
Date: 2024 Jul 28, 22:25 -0700
I have managed to catch QFA28 at the vertex of the Santiago - Sydney great circle. QFA28 is the only plane being tracked bt flightradar24 in the Southern Ocean. Contrast this with the north Atlantic.
The journey time is approximatelty 14 hours. This could be reduced to say 12 hours if there was a diversion to Christchurch. In the event of a single engine failure (and ignoring the wind) the maximum diversion time would be six hours. That is consistant with ETOPS360. This is a very crude calculation to see how the numbers fit together,
FWIIW Santiago - Sydney GC 6128nm. Rumb 6900 nm. The 772nm difference is roughly 2 hours flying time. On the rumb there may be some diversion airfields but I have not checked.
To stay on topic I have marked Lae to Howland Island on the map.
Flying across the souther ocean, even in a fast jet, must get boring. I suppose that there is plenty of time to practice cel nav? Zubenelgnubi and nunki would give a 68 degree cut. Maybe they are looking for these stars right now? Unfortunately Venus is at and altitude of 0° so it is not usable.
David c
