Extreme day trip competition

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Viewing 15 posts - 16 through 30 (of 36 total)

  • Allie
    Participant

    Flying in our own vintage Beech 18 from Iceland to Greenland Kulusuk and then deciding to attempt a landing at the abandoned second WW landing strip at Bluie East 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bluie_East_.
    Two Nobody has attempted to land an aircraft there since the American army left this strip in 1947! We did two go-arounds to visually check the grounds for hard rocks, then our pilot (a very competent South African) decided that we could risk it. As we touched down, the aircraft stopped suddenly with a big bang and we thought a tire had burst! It wasn’t that, but the wheels had sunk deep into the soft sand of the runway!!! how ever to get out of here??
    This place was the most incredible surrealistic place I have ever seen in my life and I have been to probably around 130 countries of this world. Full of oil barrels, old trucks, military structures frozen in time and place! Like a Hitchcock film!

    In the end, only thanks to our skilled pilot did we manage to get the Beech out of there. It felt like the ‘flight of the Phoenix’!! Never felt a very expensive glass of cold beer so good once we reached back our remote airport hotel in Kulusuk. The next day we continued our life time journey across the Arctic. For more on this epic day see our blog at: http://www.onthebeech.blogspot.co.uk

    1 user thanked author for this post.

    TupeloKid
    Participant

    HKG overnight to LHR, 6 meetings and one reception in London, overnight flight back the same day. (In economy.)


    Bath_VIP
    Participant

    Ok here is a UK trip to consider as a contender!

    Day trip from Reading to Newcastle to see my team Newcastle Utd. Fortunately they won 3-2 which made the whole day worthwhile!

    Original plan was to leave Reading around 0830 in order to catch the 1000 train from Kings Cross to Newcastle arriving 1300 for a 1500 kick-off and returning on the 1900 train from Newcastle. Plan didn’t survive events.

    Leg 1 – Reading to Paddington by FGW no problem.
    Leg 2 – Paddington to Kings X by Tube no problem.

    At Kings X we discovered that all services were suspended due to overhead power lines coming down following an overnight storm. We were advised to travel from St Pancras instead but there was no option that got us into Newcastle before 1500. Then I remembered that a few weeks before I had flown from Stansted to Newcastle with GO (shows you how long ago this is!) and the flight left just before 1200. We quickly rang the GO sales desk (pre smartphone days!) and there were still reasonably priced seats left so we booked two and continued our journey.

    Leg 3 – Taxi to Liverpool St no problem
    Leg 4 – Stansted Express to Stansted no problem
    Leg 5 – Stansted to Newcastle with GO no problem
    Leg 6 – Metro rail from airport to Newcastle city centre

    We were in the town centre by 1400 with time to spare before the kick off. At the back of our mind was the prospect that the overhead power lines might not have been repaired by the time we headed back. Sure enough, when we got to Newcastle station for the 1900 train, we were told the train was running to Peterborough but there was no guarantee it would be able to continue to Kings Cross.

    Leg 7 – Newcastle to Peterborough by GNER. Train did terminate at Peterborough.
    Leg 8 – Peterborough to Stevenage by Bus.
    Leg 9 – Stevenage to Kings Cross by Rail
    Leg 10 – Kings Cross to Paddington by taxi.

    By now it was well past midnight. Back then, trains to Reading ran throughout the night every hour except on Saturday night (i.e. Sunday Morning). The last train left around 0130 but it was a bit late and didn’t leave nearer 0200.

    Leg 11 – Paddington to Reading by FGW
    Leg 12 – Taxi from Reading to home

    What should have been a 6 leg journey became a 12 leg journey and involved a lot of juggling of options. Shows how committed I am to Newcastle Utd but it is fair to say I might not have the rose tinted spectacles had they lost!

    1 user thanked author for this post.

    knightflyer
    Participant

    Great topic!
    KUL-LHR red-eye via somewhere in the Middle East, picked up a rental car at LHR and drove 4.5 hours directly to Plymouth. Horizontal for ~6hrs, up for a morning meeting, then back in the car, another 4 hours to LHR for the evening flight back to KUL.


    Mike
    Participant

    Day trip to Minneapolis from Gatwick (NW), for a spot of Christmas shopping in the Mall comes to mind.


    Mike
    Participant

    Second story, but not quite a day trip. As an engineer, I was called to Sydney urgently. On arrival, met at the airport to be told all sorted. Caught the same plane back to London via Singapore! Couple next to me ,asked how long I’d been in Australia, to which I replied just a few hours…their faces were a picture of disbelief.


    capetonianm
    Participant

    I had a similar trip. I travelled from Palma de Mallorca via FRA to Bogota, arrived in Bogota on a Saturday afternoon, spent a lovely weekend in a beautiful colonial town called Villa de Leyva, then back to Bogota and went to see the client on Monday morning only to be told that the services of our company were no longer required but nobody had bothered to notify me or anyone in the company.

    I decided to stay until Wednesday and subsequently recovered my fairly substantial expenses from the company I worked for.

    LH upgraded me to F on the BOG FRA and as I’d been out for dinner before departure, all I had on the flight was a glass of water and a cup of tea!


    PerthWA
    Participant

    Perth, Western Australia via Hong Kong to New York and return.

    More time on aircraft than on the ground in NYC 🙂

    Talk about crazy things we do!


    Swissdiver
    Participant

    Doesn’t fit the 30 hours rule, but it is still absurd: HRE-BLZ (Harare-Blantyre) is a one-ish hour flight. Flew HRE-JNB-LHR-GVA-VIE-ADD-LLW-BLZ… I had to be in Switzerland for 48 hours and could not change that. Admittedly the ADD-LLW flight was one of the nicest one I ever travelled, view-wise: flying over the Rift is magical!

    More recently (we are supposed to get wiser with age, not sure), I flew over a 1 1/2 day GVA-LHR-GLA-KOI-PPW-NRL-KOI-ABZ-LHR-DUB to see the Orkneys and fly the shortest commercial flight (which I could not do ultimately but it was fun anyway). Had a very nice evening in Kirkwall.


    GreenScot
    Participant

    Bending the rules on the question a bit, this year I did an LHR-ATH-SKN-ATH-ARN-BKK-AKL-ARN-LHR. I took ‘the overnight’ from LHR to ATH connecting to Thessaloniki for an event then left the next morning for Auckland. I had dinner with the execs of the company we were purchasing that evening, meetings in their office the following morning and I was on the flight less than 27 hours after I had landed. My jet lag coming back off this trip was much less than when I come back from US East Coast trip. The trip took place over six calendar days, due to connections and timezones, for two days landside in effect


    DavidGordon10
    Participant

    I am delighted that members have found this fun.

    I think the “most exotic” must be Allie’s landing strip at Bluie East, although I probably win for the most exotic timetabled one-day destination with Bishkek (FRU). “Shortest time” at the destination has many possible winners!

    Now off on my day trip to Costa Rica….


    David
    Participant

    Not far flung, but my kids wanted to experience sleeping on a train, so flew London to Aberdeen in the afternoon and got the sleeper train back. Fortunately, the train got into Euston about 2 hours late so not only did I get extra sleep – but also a complete refund on the train fare (the highest expense of the trip).

    1 user thanked author for this post.

    GordyUK
    Participant

    Whilst in LA, I just decided to fly to Hawaii….. for the day… as you do

    Very early flight, on the beach by lunch time…. back in LA by midnight. Exhausted but drunk and tanned*

    *burned to a crisp


    Cedric_Statherby
    Participant

    This is not exactly a day trip (in fact it took nearly 2 weeks) but I did once ask the corporate travel team to put together a business trip that included the following:

    London to Reykjavík
    … to Boston
    … to the Bahamas
    … to Mexico City
    … to Montevideo
    … to Buenos Aires and home

    And I managed it entirely on hand-luggage!


    FrequentlyFlying
    Participant

    [postquote quote=983745][/postquote]

    Similar but not as long.

    LHR – EWR taxi to Teaneck Courthouse NJ, testified, taxi to EWR – LHR.

    14.5 hours in the air.

    7 hours in NJ.

    30 minutes in court.

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