A lot of routes to Asia, which are still pretty far (10-12 hours to Tokyo). Nothing to Russia far east, which would be a bit closer.
I’ve been in plenty of international trips where I transferred in SF or even Chicago or New York. It is a bit weird flying down to SF just to go back up to asia.
If they could make it quiet enough to go over land, transcontinental US flights would be great; LA/NY in 2.5 hours would likely have a pretty high demand.
[edit] As someone who flies LA/DC fairly regularly I do have to mention my favorite record of the SR-71 doing that flight in under 65 minutes.
Depending on the time of year the flights from SFO to HKG will fly north along the coast to Alaska, then over to Siberia and down the Asia coast. This is a 15hr+ flight to avoid the Jet Stream. The flight back is 4+ hours shorter!
Probably gradual optimizations in flying from Alaska, thru the Aleutian islands, to Kamchatka Russia, to Japan, to Korea, to China, to Taiwan, to the Philippines, to Indonesia, to Australia.
In fact, going directly over the Pacific is only maybe ~30% shorter.
The article says "800 mph". Meaning it would be around 30 minutes. Not including accel/decel. No? It takes a flight hour to hour and a half from LA <> SF.
Interesting according to the map, the standard for first class mail from New York will reach the most northern part of Alaska in 4 days versus 5 days for Los Angeles.
> mostly within less than insane flight times (explains the lack of New Zealand on the list)
New Zealand isn't that far away. LAX to AKL is about 11 hours travel time. The west coast to many Asian cities is at least 14 hours, if not 20 by the time you add in layovers.
How are they even going to deliver this plane? That's not enough range for a ferry pilot to deliver it to Europe or Asia, even hopping at every available airport around the Arctic.
You'd need a lot more range. The Concorde had a range of about 4500 miles. Even SFO-NRT (Tokyo) is over 5000 miles. And if you have to make a fuel stop--probably in Anchorage--you're really starting to cut into the time advantage.
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