As part of Qantas ‘project sunrise’ to experiment with ultra long haul routes and the affect it has on the human bodies and passengers, they completed their 2nd testflight yesterday direct from London to Sydney.
They used a Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner, and the flight was planned to take 18 hours and 45 minutes. Unfortunately due to strong headwinds on the later parts of the flight. the flight took longer than planned to arrive in Sydney, and landed 19 hours and 19 minutes after it departed from London, making it 4 minutes longer than the previous flight they did from New York to Sydney last month.
Above is a map showing the shortest distance (Great Circle) between London and Sydney, and Qantas flight 7879 followed this route as close as possible, although there were some slight variations from this due to airspace limitations.
Overall it seems to have been a successful test flight, and it will be interesting to see in the future where this will take us.