1st December, 2022

Singapore Airlines holds the title for the world’s longest flight; a whopping 9,536 miles nonstop between JFK and Singapore. It also hold the title for the second-longest flight at just a couple of miles less between Newark and Singapore! Each takes a scheduled eighteen hours and forty five minutes in great comfort in First or Business aboard the Airbus A350, and reasonable comfort even in Economy Class. There are other ultra long haul flights too, and Qantas even has designs on stealing the title with a non-stop service from Sydney to London – and as I learned recently at a conference, requiring fuel that is both highly refrigerated even on the ground and of higher calorific value than regular JET-A1.  

As I learned a couple of days ago though, even this won’t come anywhere close to the flight time record of 27 to 33 hours that will likely never be beaten. Not only this, but 27 to 33 hours in a Catalina seaplane, stripped of all but the bare essentials to fly just two or three passengers across the Indian ocean in radio silence, without external navigational aids and crossing Japanese-held territory at a time of war.

I learned all this as a result of finding the memorial shown above on an outside wall of the Jetwing Hotel in Galle.  It is somewhat ravaged by the harsh climate but is perfectly legible and led me to find an associated Wikipedia page that is well worth the read if you have even the slightest interest in history, aviation, adventure or travel.

Steve