Vocal Voices

New York to Sydney; 10,066 miles in 19 hours and 16 minutes at an average speed of 522 miles per hour.

Impressive, but not for me. I get cabin fever on flights to European destinations, and I just cannot sleep on trains, boats and planes no matter how long the journey. Even stopovers on the eastabout and westabout routes are a push. London, Bahrain, Singapore, Sydney or London, NY, Honolulu, Sydney might work for me. None-stop, no way.

The passengers and crew members were chosen and monitored throughout the flight to assess the mental and physiological changes they went through. It will be interesting to see how they think the results will tally with the health of Bill and Elsie, 50 somethings from Mansfield, on their first ever flight to see their son and family in Coopaburra..

It was certainly an aviation feat, but it's hardly commercial at present, is it? Only 49 on board to reduce the weight, and I think 12 or 13 of those were flight crew?

Bill & Elsie would take half that time again to get from Mansfield to Heathrow and check in, and they wouldn't be able to afford it anyway!

An aviation feat, perhaps, but what a foolish waste of money.