Many thanks to Lloyd Barry for passing along this terrific narrative of the record setting B-777 flight.  (Some of you have already received this.):
 
 
B-777 Record

History in the making. OR "I have a sore butt and I am tired."

Boeing jet goes the distance on Thursday November 10, 2005
 
LONDON -- It was the mother of all red-eye flights. Hong Kong to London the hard way, eastbound with the winds. Nonstop across two oceans and North America -- more than half way around the world. By the time the wheels of the Boeing jet touched down at London's Heathrow airport at 1:18 p.m. local time Thursday, it had set a distance record of 11,664 nautical miles. Flight time was 22 hours, 42 minutes. That's more than half-way around the world or, measured on the same scale your car's odometer uses -- 13,422 statute miles or 21,601 kilometers.

Since the dawn of the jet age more than a half century ago, no jetliner had ever flown as far nonstop without refueling. In 1962, a Boeing B-52 bomber flew 12,532 miles from Kadena, Okinawa, to an Air Force base outside of Madrid, Spain, setting the unlimited distance record by a jet without refueling. Boeing 002, the call sign for the plane, beat that mark handily. In doing so, it drew the attention even of those in aviation used to dealing with long-haul jets. After the plane made its last and final turn point over JFK Airport and headed toward New England, an air traffic controller in Canada asked the pilots for their point of origin. The controller already knew the plane's destination was London. Boeing test pilot Randy Austin, who was piloting the plane at the time, told the controller it had come from Hong Kong. The controller, apparently not believing it was THE Hong Kong in Asia, asked for that city's four-letter designation used by pilots. "Is this some kind of special flight," the controller finally asked. The controller was told its was a world record distance flight.

It is confusing. To go to London from Hong Kong, a plane would usually fly over southeast Asia, then the Middle East and into Europe. Planes have been making that flight nonstop since 1983. The 5,300 nautical mile flight takes about 10 hours. Other airline pilots heard the conversation between the Boeing pilots and the air traffic controller and started calling the 777 pilots to wish them well and to ask questions. How much fuel did they have left, how long had they been flying? Pilot talk. Calls came in from pilots of American, Continental and El Al jets that were in the vicinity of the 777. The route the jet took across the Atlantic was close to that flown by Charles Lindbergh in his Spirit of St. Louis in 1927.

As the jet approached Heathrow for landing, it was placed in a holding pattern that continued for about 20 minutes. The Heathrow controller asked the 777 pilots how long they had been flying. Told the flight time so far was more than 22 hours, the controller who put the jet on hold replied: "My apologies." The 35 passengers and pilots experienced something unusual, too. The sun came up twice on one airplane flight. Five of the nine pilots on board were in the cockpit to witness the second sunrise, which occurred just past St. Johns as the plane headed out over the Atlantic. "We were all watching for it,"  said Rod Skaar, a Boeing test pilot who was in the right side co-pilot seat at the time. Skaar was the official "navigator" for the flight, responsible for route planning and the logistics required to pull off the record flight.

Boeing established the distance record with its 777-200LR Worldliner, the longest-range jetliner ever built. The plane, which will be able to carry more than 300 passengers in a three-class cabin arrangement, will not enter airline passenger service until early next year. Instead of paying passengers, the plane carried eight pilots, two Boeing executives, several Boeing engineers, a flight attendant, customer representatives, 11 journalists and a BBC cameraman.
 
The flight started from Hong Kong Wednesday, flew into Thursday over the Pacific, then back into Wednesday when it crossed the International Dateline, and finally into Thursday again. After arriving at Heathrow Airport under cloudy leaden skies, two airport fire trucks welcomed the big blue Boeing jet with streams of water as it pulled up to a waiting media crowd. "I feel great," said Lars Anderson, vice president of Boeing's 777 program, who led the Boeing group off the plane, followed by the journalists who had been invited along for the history-making flight. The flight crew came off last, led by Captain Suzanna Darcy-Hennemann, project leader for the record-breaking flight and chief test pilot for the 777-200LR program.
 
The plane had 360,732 pounds of fuel before the engines were started in Hong Kong. It landed in London with 18,700 pounds remaining. The fuel before take off weighed more than the plane, the passengers and their bags.

Call it a publicity stunt -- and Boeing certainly got a lot of media attention with the flight. But the distance record came at a time when several major international airlines -- Qantas, Singapore, Emirates and Cathay Pacific -- are looking at the 777-200LR for ultra-long-haul flights. Boeing faces competition from Airbus in each of those hard-fought  campaigns. A Singapore Airlines 777 pilot took turns flying the jet with five Boeing pilots and two more from Pakistan International Airlines. "We believe it is important to keep building the image of this plane and its capabilities," said Andersen when asked why Boeing wanted the record. "This flight underscores our strategy of point-to-point service." The honor of landing the plane in London went to captain Asif Reza of Pakistan International Airlines, which will take delivery of the two 777-200LR test planes early next year and may order more.

Boeing test pilot John Cashman was co-pilot for the landing. Cashman is director of Boeing's flight crew operations, but on June 12, 1994, he was the chief pilot for the maiden flight of the 777. His career as a Boeing test pilot is winding down. He turns 63 next year, the age when Boeing test pilots can no longer fly. He plans to retire. Cashman is helping hire and train a new generation of Boeing test pilots and does not get in as much test flight time and he once
did, so being in the right seat for this landing was special During the flight, just after the plane passed over Los Angeles at 37,000 feet, Cashman and cockpit flight crew at the time received a call from Alan Mulally, chief executive of Boeing Commercial Airplanes. Mulally led the program to develop the 777.

Before calling the pilots, Mulally, who was in Hawaii, called Andersen. "Congratulations. You are changing the world," Mulally said The jet had passed the half way point about an hour earlier. "She knows what she has to do and she's going for it," Darcy-Hennemann said when the jet reached what used to be known as the point of no return. That "she" is Baby Blue 2, the name the Boeing test pilots have fondly given the plane, which is painted in a Boeing blue livery. It is the second of two 777-200LRs that have been used in the test flight program that began last March. Andersen broke open two bottles of Washington-state sparkling wine and everyone gathered in the spacious front cabin -- except the pilots -- to toast the half-way milestone. The jet was still more than an hour away from Los Angeles, with a continent to cross and another ocean. But it was five minutes ahead of schedule.

The 777's two General Electric engines -- the most powerful ever built -- had burned 3,000 pounds less fuel than had been estimated for that point before the flight began. Those engines generate up to 110,000 pounds of thrust for the 777-200LR, but at cruise altitude they only need to run at 17 to 20 percent of full power to push the big plane through the thin air at its cruising speed of Mach .84. On the record flight, the 777 cruised at Mach .83 to conserve fuel.

The big jet's route had been mapped out three hours before take off, calculated to set a distance record but also to catch the best possible tail winds along the way It would pass over Taiwan, along the southern coast of Japan and across the Pacific toward Midway. Northwest of Midway would be the first of three critical "turn points" that are used to measure the distance record. The second turn point was Los  Angeles and the third New York. The distance for the record was the sum  of the four legs. The plane actually flew further. That's because the distance record is measured by a straight line from the start, to each of the three turn points and finally to the end point at Heathrow. But the plane did not fly in a straight line between those points. The pilots would sometimes change course slightly to find the better winds, although each of the three turn points had to be overflown. A flight map that is part of the jet's in-flight entertainment system showed the total miles flown just before landing at 14,042 miles

The record flight came 100 years after the Wright Brothers, in 1905, set a distance record of 24 miles in 38 minutes, 20 seconds. It is considered aviation's first distance record and was recognized as such by the National Aeronautics Association, which was formed that same year. A representative of the organization was on the 777-200LR to monitor the flight and certify the distance record.

About 11 hours into the flight,Bob Buchholz, Boeing's chief engineer for 777 safety, certification and performance, was talking with a reporter in the front cabin, noting the history being made. He became teary eyed as he considered those first nonstop airplane flights across the Pacific, the Atlantic and the United States made so long ago by aviation pioneers such as John Alcock and Arthur Whitten Brown, who first crossed the Atlantic nonstop in June 1919. Baby Blue 2 crossed them all in one flight.