Non-stop flight. The longest flights in the world. Longest non-stop scheduled flights

First in the world The round-the-world non-stop flight took place in 1949.

The strategic bomber of the 43rd Bombardment Group of the US Army Air Forces Boeing B-50 Superfortress with a crew of 14 people took off from Caswell Air Force Base (Fort Worth, Texas) on February 26.

The plane returned to the same airfield on March 2, covering a distance of 37,742 km in 94 hours and 1 minute. The average speed was 401 km/h. During the flight, the bomber's fuel reserves were replenished four times with the help of tanker aircraft.

First non-stop flight around globe without refueling flown December 14–23, 1986 by Dick Rutan and Gina Eager in a Rutan Model 76 Voyager.

The aircraft, powered by two piston engines, was built by aircraft designer Burt Rutan specifically to set the record. The flight lasted 216 hours, 3 minutes and 44 seconds. In total, the aircraft covered 42,432 km with an average speed of 186.11 km/h.

On March 1–3, 2005, entrepreneur and pilot Steve Fossett set the world record on the Virgin Atlantic GlobalFlyer. speed record non-stop manned flight around the world without refueling.

The turbojet-powered single-seat aircraft, built by Burt Rutan's Scaled Composites company, completed a flight around the Earth in 67 hours, 1 minute and 46 seconds. The average flight speed was 590.7 km/h, the plane covered a distance of 36,912 km.

Flight duration records

First in the series high-profile Soviet records The duration of air travel was achieved by the crew of Valery Chkalov, Georgy Baidukov and Alexander Belyakov.

On July 20–22, 1936, they flew from Moscow to the Far Eastern island of Udd (now Chkalov Island, Khabarovsk region). The aircraft covered 9,374 km in 56 hours and 20 minutes.

On July 12–14, 1937, the crew of Mikhail Gromov, Andrei Yumashev and Sergei Danilin on the ANT-25 improved the achievements of their colleagues by completing a non-stop flight over a distance of 11,500 km along the route Moscow - San Jacinto (California, USA) in 62 hours and 17 minutes.

Their record was broken in November 1938 when two RAF Vickers Wellesley bombers flew 11,539 km non-stop between Egypt and New Australia.

Record piloting duration aircraft with refueling was installed in 1959 in the USA.

Robert Timm and John Cook took off from McCarran Airport (Las Vegas, Nevada) on December 4, 1958 in a specially prepared Cessna 172 light aircraft. The aircraft circled the airfield non-stop for 64 days 22 hours 19 minutes 5 seconds and made a soft landing on February 5, 1959. The aircraft was refueled in the air twice a day using a fuel tanker moving around the airfield.

Record for the longest piloting an aircraft without refueling installed in 2015 during Andre Borschberg's round-the-world flight on the Solar Impulse 2 electric plane.

In the period from June 28 to July 3, on the Nagoya (Japan) - Hawaii (USA) section, Borschberg covered a distance of 7,212 km in 117 hours and 52 minutes. At the same time, he set a record for distance non-stop flight for electric aircraft. The round-the-world flight itself was interrupted due to problems with the aircraft's batteries.

Longest flight record unmanned aerial vehicle(UAV) installed by the QinetiQ Zephyr 7 at the US Army Yuma Proving Ground (Arizona). The UAV stayed in the air for two weeks - 336 hours 22 minutes and 8 seconds.

Longest non-stop scheduled flights

As of June 2017, the longest non-stop flight Qatar airline operates worldwide Qatar Airways on the route Auckland (New Zealand) - Doha (Qatar).

"TASS/Ruptly"

The first flight was carried out on February 6, 2017. The flight uses a long-haul wide-body passenger aircraft Boeing 777-200LR. It covers the 14,524 km distance between Auckland and Doha in 17 hours 30 minutes.

The longest non-stop flight among Russian carriers performed by Aeroflot. This is flight SU106 on the route Moscow - Los Angeles (USA) with a length of 9781 km. Long-haul wide-body Airbus aircraft A330-200 overcome it in 12 hours 50 minutes.

Air carrier Singapore Airlines plans to receive the ultra-long-range wide-body passenger aircraft Airbus A350-900ULR in 2018. It is expected that these machines will be used for non-stop flights from Singapore to New York (USA) over a record distance of 15,348 km.

The material was prepared according to TASS-Dossier data.

Every field of human activity has its own achievements and records, and civil aviation is no exception. We will analyze which airline has the longest flight on an airplane and on which route, and also look at some interesting points regarding this phenomenon.

Singapore Airlines plane

The longest flight on an airplane is offered by the airline Singapore Airlines, in order to get there to Singapore from New York. Passengers need to travel approximately 15500 kilometers on an Airbus A340 airliner. Travel time will be about 19-19.5 hours, passengers are offered comfortable and convenient seats in business class cabins. It is in such conditions that travelers will be able to rest normally while staying in the sky for such a long time, because the airliner does not land at any airfield and does not refuel throughout the entire journey.

What can affect travel time?

It is very difficult to determine the exact flight time, because the duration is influenced by several factors:

Direction of the wind;
weather in the region;
precipitation intensity, etc.

If the weather conditions are favorable and the wind is headwind, then the longest flight by plane will last no more than 19 hours.

It is worth noting that the flight from Singapore to New York is, of course, the longest, but the return route, that is, from New York to Singapore, is even longer by about 15-20 minutes. Therefore, it is more accurate to say that the longest flight in the world is carried out by the same carrier company, but only in reverse direction, that is, from New York to Singapore.

Briefly about the airliner

There are only 100 seats on board the airliner; as mentioned earlier, there is no economy class, so tickets are sold only to the business class cabin.

The tank is designed to hold 220,000 liters of kerosene, but since the airliner does not land at the airfield for refueling, there is an additional tank with fuel in the luggage compartment. After analysis, we can come to the conclusion that fuel consumption is quite high: approximately 2000 liters for each passenger, so the Singaporean authorities decided to cancel the flight in this direction.

Business class on Singapore Airlines

Longest flights in the world

In addition to the longest flight in the world, which was canceled relatively recently, there are several other long flights operated by different air carriers around the world:

Emirates airline, flying from Dubai to Panama, was able to stay in airspace 17 hours 40 minutes, that is, it made the longest flight on an airplane without additional landing and refueling.
The flight from Johannesburg to Atlanta with Delta airlines lasts approximately 17-17.5 hours.
Air carrier Qantas Airlines, flying from Dallas to Sydney, is in the airspace for approximately 16-16.5 hours. This flight should also be considered the longest flight on an airplane.
The longest flight in Europe is the route from the capital of France to Santiago de Chile. Passengers travel for about 14.5-15 hours, depending on the weather conditions of the region and headwind gusts, and this flight is operated by the carrier AirFrance.

It is also worth noting the equally long flight from Madrid to Santiago operated by Iberia, lasting 14 hours 55 minutes, and the flight in the same direction from Paris lasting 13 hours 45 minutes.

For travelers to Italy, the longest non-stop plane flight is offered by Alitalia on the route from the Italian capital to Buenos Aires. Travel time is approximately 14-14.5 hours; the duration of the journey, as mentioned earlier, depends on the flow of headwinds and weather conditions. A flight on the same route from Frankfurt with Lufthansa takes only 7-10 minutes less. And by purchasing boarding passes to the capital of Argentina on planes of the British carrier British Airways, passengers will be able to cover a considerable distance of almost 12,000 km in about 13.5-14 hours.

The longest flight in the world, which does not involve transfers, is carried out along the “Great Arc” route. It is this one that is the shortest, if you do not take into account sine and cosine.

Examples of the longest routes in the world

Longest domestic flights

Not only international flights can be long, passengers often require tickets for domestic flights, the travel time of which is also long. Longest domestic flight by plane:

9400 km from central airport France to Reunion;
Passengers from New York to Hawaii need to travel 8,000 km;
The domestic flight from Sochi to Khabarovsk lasts 6900 km;
6800 km for passengers from the capital of Russia to Kamchatka.

It is worth noting that it is French air carriers that carry out the longest airplane flights in the world, if we consider domestic types of flights.

What can passengers do during a long flight?

If you have a long flight ahead, you should think about how to pass the time on the way. Experts advise doing the following:

book tickets only for daytime flights if passengers cannot sleep on board the airliner;
book seats in advance to be able to choose exactly the seat that is most suitable for the traveler. Can be booked seat through online registration, which begins one day before the airliner takes off. Having in hand boarding pass, in a place convenient for them, passengers will not have to be crowded in uncomfortable conditions, causing themselves a lot of inconvenience;
on the road you need to take with you all the items that may be needed on a long journey, so this point needs to be carefully thought through and analyzed. You should definitely have warm clothes on hand that you can conveniently take off or put on if the temperature in the cabin changes suddenly. No less popular are headphones or earplugs, which will help passengers sleep peacefully.

What other things you need to take with you that may be needed at any time must be decided by the passenger himself, taking into account his preferences and his own state of health.

Today, passengers traveling from one end of the world to another do not need to waste extra time and effort on transfers: they just need to choose the right flight and a cheap air ticket. Modern models aircraft are capable of flying extremely long distances, and airlines, as if competing, offer more and more long flights. Do you want to know which planes can fly 12-15 thousand kilometers, where and from where long-range airliners can fly without transfers, and what should passengers do if they have to spend more than 15 hours on the road? Then read our rating review of the longest flights in the world.

What is a non-stop flight?

Not even the most experienced travelers are well familiar with the term “direct flight”, when the plane flies directly from the city of departure to the city of arrival without intermediate stops. But there is also another concept - “ non-stop flight" First, let's figure out what a nonstop flight is and how it differs from a direct flight.

A non-stop flight (as well as a direct flight) is a commercial flight in which there are no intermediate stops or transfers of the aircraft - the plane flies from point A to point B directly. But there are two special criteria that set it apart from the rest. The first is the significant distance of the route (at least 12 thousand kilometers); the second is the significant duration of the flight (passengers have to spend more than 15 hours on the plane).

It is clear that the longest flights are possible between points located in different parts of our planet, for example, between cities South-East Asia And North America. This type of flight has its own characteristics. As in shipping, the route of air travel is laid out in a great circle, since this route is the shortest. In this case, most often planes fly over the polar regions.

The longest non-stop routes are possible between cities that are geographical antipodes, that is, located at opposite ends of the globe relative to its center, while the distance between the antipodes at the equator will be 20,038 kilometers. Possible Buenos Aires-Shanghai and Auckland-Madrid routes are 19,602 and 19,628 kilometers in length respectively, while the great circle distance between Taipei and Asuncion is 19,918 kilometers.

How long can a plane fly without refueling?

The very first long non-stop route during the active development of jet commercial aviation is considered to be the Tel Aviv - New York flight. The flight has been operated by El Al since 1961. The distance between points was 9.1 thousand kilometers. Then the Boeing 707 plane covered it in 9.5 hours. With the development of aviation, aircraft have become larger and more powerful, and routes have become much longer. But to this day, not every plane can fly more than 12,000 kilometers with passengers on board. Only a few types of airliners are capable of this.

Thus, the world's first long-range wide-body aircraft Boeing 747 at maximum load it is capable of covering a distance of 14.8 thousand kilometers.

For extra-long flights from Los Angeles to Singapore or from Dallas to Tokyo, they are often used Boeing 777-200LR. It was he who in 2005 set a world record for flight distance, which other commercial airliners could not break, covering 21.6 thousand kilometers in almost 23 hours. True, the airliner was empty: there were only 8 pilots and 27 passengers on board (out of a possible 300). When fully loaded, the Boeing 777-200LR can cover 17.5 thousand kilometers.

Another aircraft in the series capable of flying extremely long distances - Boeing 787-9. Routes up to 14.1 thousand kilometers long are available to him.

Airbus also boasts two long-range models . Airbus A340-500(can fly up to 16.7 thousand kilometers) and “giant” civil aviation A380, whose flight range is 15.2 thousand kilometers.

One of the best in domestic aviation IL-96 in the Il-96M/T modification, it is capable of covering up to 12.8 thousand kilometers.

Longest airplane flights in the world

We have compiled the top 10 longest non-stop flights operated by airlines today. It is worth noting that the duration of the route when performing a flight in one and reverse side differs: weather conditions, air flow directions and wind affect.

1. Doha - Auckland, 14,535 km

The leader among non-stop flights today is the flight connecting the capital of the Arab state of Qatar with Auckland, New Zealand. Flights have been operated by Qatar Airways on a Boeing 777-200LR since February 2017.

The length of the route is just over 14.5 thousand kilometers, its duration is 17 hours 40 minutes.

2. Perth - London, 14,498 km

A newcomer among the record holders is the Perth - London flight of Qantas Airways. The first ever non-stop flight from Australia to the UK was made by a Boeing 787-9 in March 2018. The length of the route was almost 14.5 thousand kilometers; 200 passengers and 16 crew members spent more than 17 hours in flight.

Moreover, on the same day the plane took off for the return flight, the journey “home” turned out to be faster - 16 hours 34 minutes.

3. Dubai - Auckland, 14,202 km

The top three is completed by another flight to New Zealand, this time from the Emirates. The flight has been operated by Emirates since 2016. The length of the route is 14.2 thousand kilometers. The Airbus A380-800 covers this distance in 17 hours and 15 minutes.

4. Sydney - Dallas, 13,804 km

Australian carrier Qantas was again in fourth place. His double-decker Airbus A380-800 flies 13.8 thousand kilometers in 15 hours 35 minutes. The first flight took place in September 2014.

5. Singapore - San Francisco, 13,588 km

Singapore Airlines passengers flying from the city-state of Singapore to San Francisco will have to spend about 16.5 hours in the cabin of an Airbus A350-900 airliner. It is interesting that, taking into account time zones, the journey takes less than an hour (a plane departing in the morning arrives in the States with a local time difference of only half an hour), but the return journey “takes” almost two days.

6. Johannesburg - Atlanta, 13,582 km

Since 2009, Delta Air Lines Boeing 777-200LR has been flying from South Africa to the United States. Air route The liner covers a length of 13.6 thousand kilometers in 16 hours and 15 minutes. Interestingly, according to airline statistics, flight passengers eat 200 thousand bags of peanuts and 100 thousand packs of crackers per year, washing it all down with 70 thousand cans of soda.

7. Dubai - Los Angeles, 13,420 km

8. Los Angeles - Bangkok, 13,309 km

Thai Airways International passengers flying from the States to Thailand will have to spend 17.5 hours on the road. This flight is one of the oldest on our list - it has been operated by the company’s aircraft since 2005. The second longest airliner in Airbus world The A340-500 covers a distance of 13.3 thousand kilometers.

9. Dubai - Houston, 13,144 km

And again Emirates, this time with a flight to Houston. Flights have been operated on Boeing 777-200LR since 2007. The plane covers a distance of 13.1 thousand kilometers in 16 hours and 20 minutes.

10. Washington - Johannesburg, 13,084 km

The top 10 is completed by the route from the capital of the United States to the largest economic and financial center of South Africa. The flight, lasting just over 15 hours, has been operated by South African Airways since 2009. Flights are carried out on Airbus A340-300.

Russian airlines were not included in the rating. The planes of the largest domestic carrier Aeroflot fly non-stop at a distance of only up to 10 thousand kilometers. Most long route“Moscow - Los Angeles” is 9,782 km (travel time about 13 hours).

Advantages and disadvantages of nonstop flights

Of course, such super long and super long flights have their pros and cons. Among the advantages, it is worth noting time savings. You won't have to waste hours or even days on transfers or stops to refuel your plane. There is no need to stand in additional lines at the airport or worry about luggage when transferring to another flight. It is enough to check in once at the point of departure - and there is no rush.

Such a flight also has its disadvantages. Not every passenger is able to withstand 15 to 18 hours of flight in the confined space of an airplane, even if it is a giant double-decker airliner. Of course, airlines try to make the time you spend on board as enjoyable as possible. To make passengers comfortable, they are given pillows, blankets, slippers, and some companies even warm socks. A large selection of music and films, drinks and food are mandatory components of such flights.

What to do on a plane when it's a long flight

A long road in the sky without transfers can tire even the most persistent traveler. How can you make your flight as comfortable as possible? We have prepared some tips:

If you can't sleep on a plane, then choose daytime flights and get a good night's sleep beforehand. Still, you may still need a sleep mask and earplugs in case you decide to take a nap.

When financial capabilities allow, it is better to purchase a business class ticket. The seats here are wider and more comfortable, there is more legroom, and there are fewer passengers. If business class is not an option for you, book your seats in advance. On any plane there are both more and less favorable seats. Just study the interior layout of your aircraft and choose the most suitable seat for yourself.

Wear comfortable and comfortable clothes made from natural materials. And your weekend suit is unlikely to withstand sitting in a chair for a long time. It is best to dress in layers: this way you can quickly adjust to the temperature on the plane. Pack a spare set of laundry to keep you feeling clean and fresh.

During the flight, you should definitely take off your shoes. Usually on long-haul flights, flight attendants hand out slippers. But spare socks will also come in handy.

Grab in hand luggage hygiene supplies: toothpaste and brush. It is also worth putting face lotion and moisturizer: the skin also suffers from dehydration.

To warm up, get up every half hour to an hour, walk down the aisle, and do some simple exercises. Lack of movement can lead to swelling and pain in the legs. Compression socks or stockings can also be useful - they improve blood circulation and reduce swelling.

Drink more fluids. Airplanes have very dry air, so the body needs water to keep all its systems normal. In addition, fluid intake reduces the risk of blood stagnation in the veins due to long periods of sitting still in a chair. On the contrary, you should avoid coffee and alcohol; they only contribute to dehydration of the body.

Don't skip food, but don't overeat during the flight either. Fasting, like extreme stress on the stomach, is an unnecessary test for the body, which is already under stress. It is optimal to eat what is offered to you on board, no more, no less.

Take care of your leisure time. A long flight is a great time to watch a couple of great films. Take e-book: You will have an alternative if you get tired of the movie. Tired of having fun? Prepare a list of things to do in advance that you can deal with during the flight.

The transport sector also has its own records and achievements, as well as its own Kunstkamera - unusual routes and flights. In this review we will tell you about the 10 most remarkable flights in the world operated on different types transport: air, land, water, etc.

The shortest scheduled passenger flight

The world's shortest regular passenger flight is a flight between Westray and Papa Westray airports in the Orkney Islands in Scotland. This route connects two small nearby inhabited patches of land in the North Sea. At the same time, the duration of the flight in the air is only 47 seconds, and the flight as a whole, including taxiing, takeoff and landing, is 2 minutes.

Westray and Papa Westray airports are within easy sight of each other, just 2.6 kilometers apart. Regular flights between them are operated by the Scottish company Longair, and the cost of a round trip flight is £17.

Interestingly, the population of Papa Westray Island is only 70 people. However, flying to it is consistently popular - the island thanks a huge number Historical and archaeological sights are favored by tourists.

Shortest international passenger flight

The distance between the cities of Vienna and Bratislava is only 60 kilometers; you can get from one locality to another by car, bus or train in less than an hour. However, from April 2015, flyniki plans to launch regular flights between the capital of Austria and Slovakia.

Airplanes flying between Vienna and Bratislava will be in the air for just 10 minutes, making it the shortest international passenger flight in the world.

Many observers have great doubts about the feasibility of this flight, because it is possible to get between these cities by land faster than by air, given the need to travel to and from the airport, go through security and wait for landing. Apparently, the flyniki airline is thus going to attract Bratislava passengers to fly from Vienna, for whom this flight will become an intermediate flight.

Longest nonstop passenger flight

In turn, the longest regular passenger flight is the flight between the cities of Singapore and Newark (USA), operated by Singapore Airlines. The Airbus A340 aircraft covers a flight of 15,345 kilometers in 18 hours 40 minutes in one direction and 18 hours 50 minutes in the other.

Interestingly, the distance of 15,345 kilometers is approximately equal to the length of the Eurasian continent from the westernmost point to the easternmost.

Considering the duration of the flight, Airbus airliner The A340, which flies between Singapore and Newark, is equipped exclusively with business class seats, allowing passengers to rest and sleep well during the long journey.

The world's longest railway route

Until 2010, the world's longest passenger by rail the Kharkov-Vladivostok train was considered. This train, launched back in 1957, covered the distance between the end points in 7 days, 7 hours and 34 minutes, covering 9,714 kilometers. Moreover, separate cars from Kyiv, Donetsk and Dnepropetrovsk were also connected to it, which further increased the travel distance.

But in 2010, this train was canceled due to the low number of direct passengers. The new record holder was the train traveling along the Moscow-Vladivostok route. This train covers 9259 kilometers in 7 days and 10 hours.

Longest freight rail route

Where direct passenger rail transportation over long distances may not be in demand, there is often a place for freight trains. The most clear evidence of this appeared in December 2014, when a new record-breaking train appeared on the world map. We are talking about a cargo train that started on November 18 in Chinese city Yiwu and finished twenty-one days later in Madrid, covering a distance of 13 thousand kilometers and eight countries along the way: China, Kazakhstan, Russia, Belarus, Poland, Germany, France and, in fact, Spain.

A freight train brought more than a billion dollars worth of Chinese goods to the Spanish capital. In order not to go back empty, the train carried Spanish wines, butter, jamon and other products to China.

The Yiwu-Madrid train will operate on a regular basis in the future. This record-breaking and important route has already been given the nickname “New Silk Road” or “Silk Road of the 21st century”. The possibility of converting this cargo flight into a passenger flight is also being studied.

The smallest metro in the world

The city of Catania is interesting not only because it is the administrative center of the island of Sicily. In that locality there is also a unique transport system– the shortest metro line in the world.

The Catania metro was put into operation in 1999. The first and only line since then consists of 6 stations, and its length is only 3.6 kilometers. The construction of the next stage of the metro is hampered by a lack of funding - Catania, like the whole of Sicily, is one of the poorest regions of Italy.

In the existing one this moment The metro line isn't much use. A little more than 11 thousand passengers use this type of public transport per day, despite the fact that the population of Catania is 315 thousand people.

Street elevator to another area

We are accustomed to the fact that elevators serve as a means of transportation inside multi-story buildings. But there are regions where these structures are quite popular urban vehicle. Most often this happens in cities with difficult terrain, for example, in Lisbon. But the most unusual and beautiful street elevator appeared in 2013 in Pamplona, the capital of the Spanish province of Navarra.

This street elevator connects two urban areas separated by a steep slope with a height difference of thirty meters. Previously, residents there had to take a detour, but now communication between neighboring streets has become much easier, at least for pedestrians and cyclists.

After all, where just a couple of years ago you had to spend half an hour walking around, now you can go down or up in just a few seconds on a street elevator.

The cable car as the main form of urban transport

Georgia is also a country with a rather complex mountainous terrain. However, it does not boast amazing street elevators, but the ubiquity of cable cars, which are found in many large and small cities of this state. But the small village of Chiatura stands out especially against the general background, where such vehicles are the main form of urban transport.

Chiatura is a mining town sandwiched between several mountain peaks. At the same time, the city center is located at the bottom of the gorge, and the main residential areas are scattered along the neighboring slopes and mountains. Due to the terrain features of this locality, passenger road transport is poorly developed, and therefore the main type public transport There are cable cars in Chiatura.

Today, there are 10 lines in the city cable car, and previously there were even more - 17. At the same time, most sites use incredibly outdated equipment, which has been in continuous use since the fifties of the twentieth century. There is a legend that it was the absurdly shaped metal trailers from Chiatura that became the prototype for the famous Pepelats in the film “Kin-Dza-Dza” by Georgian Georgy Danelia.

The busiest ferry service in the world

New York also cannot boast of ideal terrain. However, in this metropolis, the obstacle to moving from one point of the city to another is not the mountains, but bodies of water - the Hudson River and others. Therefore, one of the most important forms of urban transport in New York is ferries.

Moreover, for the Staten Island area, the ferry is generally the only possible means of transport to get to the rest of New York - there are no bridges or tunnels leading to this island.

It is therefore not surprising that the Staten Island Ferry is considered the busiest ferry service in the world. It operates 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. This line carries an average of 75 thousand passengers per day, which gives a record 27 million people a year.

The smallest tram line

In 1989, in the Crimean village of Molochnoe near Yevpatoria, a tram line was opened, which is the shortest in the world. The length of the entire route is only one and a half kilometers; it connects the Beregovoy boarding house with the seaside beach.

However, this tram can be used not only by holidaymakers vacationing in Beregovoe, but also by everyone, which makes this tram system a full-fledged form of public transport. True, this tram is operated only in the summer, during the tourist season.

January 11, 1935 American pilot Amelia Earhart committed a single flight through Pacific Ocean , which no one in the world had ever managed before. This was the peak of the career of the brave American, her most impressive achievement, which transferred Earhart to the category of legends. And today we will tell you about ten of the most iconic and famous air records throughout the history of aviation.

The history of aviation records is unthinkable without the achievements achieved by the Wright brothers on December 17, 1903. On this day, they made the world's first four flights on the Wright Flyer, each of which was a record in terms of range and duration compared to the previous ones. As a result, we settled on 260 meters and 59 seconds.

On May 20-21, 1927, American pilot Charles Lindbergh made a flight that remains the most famous in the history of world aviation. He took off from New York on a plane with the poetic name “Spirit of St. Louis”, and 33.5 hours later landed at Le Bourget Airport near Paris. This was the first solo flight across the Atlantic Ocean.

The next aviation record of this magnitude was set only in 1935 by Amelia Earhart. The brave American, on her Vega 5b aircraft, was the first in the world to make a solo flight across the Pacific Ocean, starting from Hawaiian Islands and landing 18 hours and 16 minutes later in Oakland, California. On July 2, 1937, Earhart died while trying to fly an airplane around the globe.

At that time, the Soviet Union had its own star pilot, very comparable in popularity to the Americans Lindbergh and Earhart. We are talking about Valery Chkalov, who on June 18-20, 1937, as part of the Chkalov-Baidukov-Belyakov crew, made a transcontinental flight from Moscow to the American city of Portland, Vancouver, flying through the Arctic Ocean and the North Pole.

On January 16-18, 1957, three American B-52B heavy bombers made the world's first non-stop flight around the world. During the flight, they refueled three times from a refueling aircraft. In 45 hours and 19 minutes, these stratospheric fortresses (as their nickname Stratofortress is translated into Russian) covered a distance of 39,165 kilometers by air.

Sometimes the fact of setting a new record becomes a record in itself. For example, a similar thing happened on March 22, 1989 with an airplane, which during a 3.5-hour flight immediately set 110 new world achievements, such as maximum cargo weight, maximum take-off weight, as well as speed, altitude and flight range records for aircraft of this type. type.

Bertrand Piccard was born in great family. His grandfather Auguste and father Jacques became famous for their famous submersible dive to the bottom Mariana Trench, many of his relatives are famous conquerors of the air and stratosphere. And Bertrand himself did not make a mistake. In 1999, he and Briton Brian Jones made the first ever flight around the world. hot-air balloon. In 19 days, 21 hours and 47 minutes, they covered a distance of 45,755 kilometers on the Breitling Orbiter 3.

On October 4, 2004, American pilot Brian Binney made the highest flight in aviation history on SpaceShipOne. He raised his aircraft to a height of just over 112 kilometers above the Earth's surface, thereby breaking the boundary between the atmosphere and space.

Longest flight by plane

The time has come for new aviation records. Classic aircraft, of course, continue to develop, but much more promising and interesting are aircrafts with alternative energy sources. The first such famous aircraft was the Solar Impulse, on which Bertrand Piccard and Andre Borschberg flew in May-June 2013 from west coast United States of America to the east, from San Francisco to New York. In the future, they plan to cross the Atlantic on Solar Impulse, and then travel around the world.

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