If you can't read Sinhala, get the fonts from here

Tuesday 5 August 2014

Flight of the Double Sunrise

Let me ask you a simple question;
       Which airline operates the longest flight in the world?

       It has a simple answer. If you Google it you'll find the Australian "Qantas" airline operates a Boeing 747-400ER flight (flight no. QF 7) from Sydney to Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport at Texas/USA taking 15 hours and 25 minutes to travel a distance of 13,804 km is the longest flight in the current world.
       But I heard a new, interesting news last weekend. Actually there was a flight which was known as the "Flight of the double sunrise" which took 27 - 33 hours to travel a total distance of 6,480 km. Although the distance is not that much it took more than one day, which gave that name.So the crew had seen the sunrise twice before they land.

       The more interesting thing is that the flight was from  Nedlands in Western Australia to the Royal Air Force base at Lake Koggala, Galle in Sri Lanka. Isn't that amazing. This happened from 1943, after Singapore had been captured by Japan during World War 2, to re-establish the Australia–England air link. Koggala was used as the re-fueling base for the flight.
       The 1st flight happened on 30th June 1943 and the last on 18th July 1945. In between there were 271 flights across the enemy territory over the Indian Ocean. So brave crew did this for 2 years and to celebrate the 70th Anniversary of  'The Double Sunrise Flights', a 30 minute documentary film was made in 2013.

Check the following links for more details.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Double_Sunrise
    http://www.catalinadoco.com/
    http://britishfortress.com/download/Double_Sunrise_service_docx_Compatibility_Mode.pdf