Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by netsharc 156 days ago
Some friends flew eastwards from New York to Singapore on a direct flight (it's one of the longest flights). I wondered what their experience of sunrises and sunsets were (they departed 10PM), I've noted down the times but haven't plotted it...

Later this year I'm flying from Europe to the West Coast of Canada, and it seems I'll be in daylight for the entirity of the flight (departing 2PM local, landing 4PM local after a 10 hour flight).

Edit: well, FR24 has a handy flight tracking that includes the daylight progression: https://www.flightradar24.com/data/flights/sq23#3de5a306

So they flew 18 hours and experienced a full daylight cycle, arriving just before the second sunrise...

2 comments

I flew from central US to western asia (via moscow) and it was an interesting experience for the reasons you mentioned. I think I left early Saturday morning local time and arrived Sunday evening local time. I saw a sunrise, sunset, sunrise, sunset in 18 hours of travel time.
I wonder what the physical toll on a man exprriencing three consecutive solar days?
On a long haul flight, the crew usually tells everyone to shut the window blinds, because many people want to sleep, so you don't get to see the sun.
I had interesting flights in end of june from St. Petersburg to Novosibirsk. It departed at around 23:00, and you saw sunset and still a dawn. As the plane flew mostly at latitude of 60°, the dawn in the north was always there, and 1.5 hours later, the sun rose. The plane arrives after 3h30m of flight at ~7:00 local time, in summer solistice the sun is already high enough.