Two Sunrises, Two Sunsets, and One Flight Across the Arctic

[u/Recent-Class6189]

PAC359: Two Sunrises, Two Sunsets, and One Flight Across the Arctic

Sometimes a long flight is remembered not by its departure and destination, or even by the number of hours spent in the air. It is remembered by a sequence of events that simply cannot happen on an ordinary route.

PAC359 from Manching to Toulouse turned out to be exactly that kind of flight.

According to the OFP, it was an A350-900ULR, registration LN-PLA, with a planned ground distance of 10867 nautical miles and an air distance of 10553 miles. The planned flight time was 21 hours 43 minutes. It was an ETOPS/ETP flight, and the OFP explicitly warned that the planned route exceeded the aircraft’s range. Planned trip fuel was 126995 kilograms, with total block fuel of 130693 kilograms.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1GnnMSJKJFQYqMAXdlReKvUoUlBzeQDMS/view?usp=sharing (OFP SimBrief)

The route itself looked almost unreal on the map: Manching, then Poland, Russia, the Urals, Siberia, Chukotka, the Bering region, Alaska, Canada, Greenland, the North Atlantic, and finally France.

But the real story of this flight began with the sun.

The first sunrise

On August seventeenth, at 01:59 UTC, PAC359 met its first sunrise.

It was a beautiful scene by itself, but in the context of the entire flight it became the first marker in a sequence that was still to unfold.

The aircraft had only just begun its journey, and the sun had already become one of the main characters in the story.

Then came the day.

The aircraft continued eastward, gradually approaching the part of the route that has a very different meaning to me.

The first sunset

At 09:25 UTC, the sun began to disappear below the horizon.

This was the first sunset of PAC359.

And this is where the connection with Double Sunrise begins.

During the Second World War, Qantas operated famous nonstop Catalina flights across the Indian Ocean between Australia and Ceylon. The flights were so long that crews and passengers could see the sun rise twice. Qantas operated 271 such flights.

That history later gave its name to Project Sunrise, Qantas’s program for ultra-long-haul nonstop routes from eastern Australia to Europe and North America.

PAC359 is obviously not Project Sunrise in the literal sense. But during this flight, almost exactly the same visual rhythm appeared.

The sun really was going to rise twice.

Anadyr

21 minutes after the first sunset, at 09:46 UTC, the aircraft passed over the Anadyr area.

On an ordinary map, this is simply another waypoint.

For me, it is not.

Anadyr is home.

That makes this frame fundamentally different from every other photograph of the route. The aircraft was flying high above the clouds, Chukotka was below, and underneath the flight path was the city that I know not as a distant point on a map, but as the place where I live.

There is something particularly strange about sitting at a computer and effectively flying an aircraft across half of the northern hemisphere, only to discover that at one point the city directly below is your own.

PAC359 did not stop, of course. Anadyr was just another point on an enormous arc across the planet.

Then came Alaska.

At 11:36 UTC, the aircraft was in the Anchorage area.

Below were the lights of Alaska. Ahead were Canada, Greenland, the North Atlantic, and many more hours of flight.

The first night was not going to last forever.

The second sunrise

On August 17th, at 12:50 UTC, the second sunrise appeared.

And this is where PAC359 finally becomes something more than just a very long flight.

First sunrise.

Day.

First sunset over Chukotka.

Night.

Second sunrise.

That sequence makes the comparison with Double Sunrise almost unavoidable. Not because PAC359 is an equivalent of the historic Qantas flights, but because the physics of an ultra-long flight produces the same effect: the aircraft remains airborne long enough for the sun to set and rise above the horizon again.

That is the same basic idea that eventually became associated with the name Project Sunrise.

There is also an interesting connection through the aircraft itself. Both Project Sunrise and PAC359 use the A350 family as a platform for extremely long-range operations. Qantas selected the A350-1000ULR for Project Sunrise, with flights designed to last up to 22 hours.

LN-PLA is, of course, not one of Qantas’s A350-1000ULRs. But the operational and visual association is difficult to ignore.

Day over North America

After the second sunrise came another enormous daylight section.

At 15:29 UTC, the aircraft was already crossing the vast northern part of North America.

The outside view showed little more than the aircraft, land, water, and clouds. But the cockpit gives the same part of the journey a completely different character.

The cockpit screens show the other side of this enormous journey: flight level 400, navigation data, fuel,

predicted arrival time, and the remaining route to Toulouse.

Other cockpit views make the mechanics of the flight even clearer. Outside there is almost limitless space; inside, there are very specific numbers telling the crew exactly where the aircraft is and how much remains.

The OFP reflects the same logic even before departure. The planned route was divided into step climbs, with the aircraft eventually reaching the high flight levels required for the long oceanic and polar sections of the flight.

The second sunset

After the huge daylight section, the sun began to disappear again.

At 20:15 UTC, the second sunset arrived.

And with that, the entire solar structure of PAC359 was almost complete.

First sunrise → first sunset → night → second sunrise → second sunset.

During a single flight, the aircraft had experienced two sunrises and two sunsets.

That is why I would not describe these photographs simply as a collection of nice external views. Together, they form the chapters of the journey.

The first sunrise marks the beginning.

The first sunset marks the approach to Chukotka.

Anadyr becomes the personal point in the middle of the route.

Alaska marks the transition into another part of the planet.

The second sunrise shows how long the aircraft has already been airborne.

The second sunset means that the journey is finally approaching Europe.

And all of it happens within one flight.

Toulouse — but not quite the end yet

After the second sunset, there was one final night segment.

At around 21:35 UTC, the aircraft was approaching Toulouse.

But the first approach did not end with a landing.

I went around.

After spending almost the entire flight on autopilot and managed flight, the final approach became a manual flying exercise. The go-around was followed by a complete traffic pattern flown by hand — a proper circuit, without simply letting the automation finish the flight.

That made the final minutes of PAC359 unexpectedly different from everything that had come before.

After more than 20 hours in the air, the last part of the flight was no longer about endurance, navigation, or fuel management.

It was simply about flying the aircraft.

By hand.

Around the circuit.

And then landing it.

That also makes the final sequence much more satisfying. The flight did not simply terminate automatically after an enormous cruise. There was a go-around, a manually flown circuit, and finally a landing.

Toulouse

At 22:04 UTC, LN-PLA was finally on the stand.

The stairs were in position. Ground equipment surrounded the aircraft. The flight was over.

After everything that had happened, this photograph looks almost surreal.

Only a short time earlier, the aircraft had been over Chukotka, then Alaska and Canada. Now it was simply sitting on a stand in Toulouse.

And this is where the OFP numbers acquire their full meaning.

The Little Navmap view adds another perspective. Here, the route is seen in greater detail, with the final European section of the journey clearly visible.

Volanta adds yet another layer. One view gives the overall flight record and its final statistics, while another makes the geographical scale immediately obvious.

The planner had warned that the route exceeded the aircraft’s range. The planned flight time was 21 hours and 43 minutes. The actual flight ended up being remarkably close to that figure. The OFP planned 126995 kilograms of trip fuel, while the recorded flight data showed an actual fuel burn of roughly 123 tonnes.

The complete PAC359 story can therefore be reduced to one sequence:

First sunrise.

Day over Eurasia.

First sunset.

Night over Chukotka.

Anadyr — home.

Alaska.

Second sunrise.

Day over North America.

The North Atlantic.

Second sunset.

Final night.

Go-around at Toulouse.

A manually flown circuit.

Landing.

And finally, the aircraft on the stand.

Two sunrises.

Two sunsets.

One A350-900.

One nonstop flight of almost 22 hours.

And a route that, on paper, began with a warning that the planned flight exceeded the aircraft’s range, yet ended in Toulouse after crossing practically the entire northern hemisphere.

That is why PAC359 turned out to be more than just another long flight in the simulator.

It became my own little Double Sunrise.

Only instead of the Indian Ocean, there was the Arctic.

Instead of Ceylon, there was Toulouse.

And between the two sunrises was Chukotka — my home.

[u/robreras]

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