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Old 29th November 2008, 10:35 AM
Will T Will T is offline
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Join Date: Mar 2008
Location: Sydney, Australia
Posts: 175
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To answer some of the questions above (I missed them earlier):

- It's a 744ER-only route. Not sure why the initial allocation showed as OED.

- Ops are currently limited to a maximum of 72 deg South, which provides a small buffer against overflying Antarctica proper (save for the low-lying cape/island we overflew). Going further south entails similar considerations to our Antarctic charter flights (eg. Polar survival equipment, which requires the removal of a number of seat rows). An analysis is currently being undertaken by QF on the concept of going to 80 deg South, which would allow westbound flights to take advantage of significant tailwinds there. Going down to 80S (versus staying further north) can make the difference between an overall wind component of 40kts headwind and 10kts tailwind.

- Takeoffs out of Buenos Aires are likely to be somewhat limited in the summer months by the short runway. OAT for our departure was 34 deg, and this necessitated the use of a Packs Off procedure, which is something we regularly do out of JNB (and I believe is also a standard Airbus operating procedure).
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