It was a flight along the Appalachian ridges, from central PA to southwestern VA and back.
When a sizable cold front passes it tends to bring northwest winds, which can make these ridges work for long glider flights. There’s nothing particularly unusual about an all-day flight.
Wow. I did not know that, I figured you set some sort of record.
Thanks!
(I remember seeing a pamphlet about glider rides somewhere near State College. I asked my kids if they’d be into it. After initially being up for it, they backed out when we were close, so we did a boat ride in a flooded cavern instead.)
Washington DC to Beijing and back, about 13 hours
How’d the glider’s pilot relief system work?
Not an especially long flight compared to the above but 7 1/2 hours in a single seat glider. This isn’t even long compared many, many other glider flights. But there’s no getting up to stretch your legs, no flight attendant to bring you food and drinks and no toilet (although this issue is easily taken care of with the correct plumbing). Not to mention having to actually fly the glider. I’ve had countless flights where I think, “I could have flown to California by now in a A320 and haven’t burned a drop of gas outside of the initial tow”.
The longest direct flight was about 13 hours, San Francisco to Auckland.
The longest trip was Philadelphia to San Francisco (6 hours) to Auckland (13 hours) to Sydney (3.5 hours), exclusive of layovers. It was pretty excruciating.
Glider duration records are now obsolete - this category was eliminated a long time ago. It had become meaningless: in a place where a steady wind blows against a sizable slope, you can stay aloft indefinitely - or at least until you fall asleep. I think the last accepted record was well over 50 hours.
It’s known as Ridge Soaring Gliderport - I’ve flown from there.
Probably Penns Cave. (Dunno if they have kayaks there.)
Just fine.
Various arrangements are used, ranging from a gallon-sized ziplock bag to a “male external catheter” hooked to an overboard tube. (Really cold weather can be an issue.)
Yep! We drove 4 hours and my kids chickened out.
Yep again!
The boats had ancient gas powered engines that sputtered and coughed the entire time. It was cool, but we probably were just shy of CO poisoning by the end of the exploration.
If we can count longest trips all at one go, then mine was Toronto to Honolulu (about 9 hours), then Honolulu to Sydney (about 9.5 hours), then Sydney to Perth (about 6 hours). Note, though, that there were ~2 hour layovers in both Honolulu and Perth, but all that time in transit–phew!
What airline was that, and when? I have never seen direct flights like that - there is always a connection somewhere.
Seriously, Phoenix to Surabaya? No way is that a direct flight!
(Also, up thread I posted my longest flight, Chicago direct to Tokyo, and just now realized I totally forgot to mention how long the flight took. 15 hrs. That’s how long!)
That is my longest as well. I don’t think they come much longer than that. (Actually there is, or at least was, a Singapore to Houston flight that on paper looks like a direct flight that lasts even longer, but it stops in Moscow and you have to get off the plane, so it doesn’t really count as one long flight.)
Quantas. 26 hours with three stops. It was … interesting.
I am glad for the flight. I got to sleep in the overhead bin until I was woken up for breakfast with a bunch of rowdy blokes and very cute stewardesses.
Sydney - Brisbane - KL - Stockholm
Sydney - KL was around 9 hours and KL - STO was around 13 hours. Plus leaving 40C Sydney and arriving in -10C was interesting.
Christchurch - Auckland - Los Angeles - London in one go (and vice versa on the return leg); time in LA was literally one hour (as in get off the plane and be hustled into a small, featureless translit lounge while they refuel, back on then take off again).
It was a 25 hour trip, pretty much all of it spent actually in an aeroplane.
I also did it more than once. And this was back in the days when aeroplanes didn’t have the fancy individual inflight entertainment systems. Good times.
Oh I got another flight, though not the longest on each leg.
I did a consulting contract with a corp that bought funeral homes all over the world.
My partner and I were developing a Lotus Notes/Domino app for flight scheduling, email, and for the C-level execs’ travel planning for the home office.
They had 4 private jets for these purposes. (two Lears, one Galaxy IV, one Galaxy V).
I brought up in a meeting one day “Instead of those stupid AirPhones, why not let us put a Domino server in every plane, with satellite internet?”.
I had no idea how to do this, the thought just escaped through my mouth. But they bought it.
After months of development, of course it needed to be tested.
Flight plan was from Houston Hobby to MIA to JFK to Gatwick to Paris to some bumfuck Hungary airport to Berlin to Brussels - on to Lisbon then back to HOU. Picking up and dropping off the execs along each leg.
Our system worked considering the early days of that technology, but in the rush/excitement I realized I had no passport.
I stayed on the plane or tarmac the whole trip and the various US embassies were not very helpful considering the short time-frame involved on each leg. Often just a stop-and-go sort of thing.
I did get to luxuriate in a Galaxy V on the trip, which was nice.
In a single day of travel probably WLG-AKL-SYD-DXB
Other long single legs I have done are LAX-SYD, LAX-HKG, SFO-HKG, AMS-JNB.
My longest ticket (kudos to the poor staff at the office in Prague):
PRG-FRA-DXB-SEZ-PRI-SEZ-MRU-SEZ-DXB-CMB-MLE-CMB-BKK-SIN-PER-ADL (open) SYD-WLG
My longest had to be on a C130 going from North Carolina to Panama with a stopover in Georgia along the way. C130s are slow and are completely utilitarian, nothing to do but just sit there. I was on a C141 on the way back and that was practically heaven in comparison.
Sioux Falls, SD to Honolulu with a stopover in San Francisco (where I did not leave my heart 
).