10,066-Mile Journey

It’s a little after 9 p.m. in New York JFK international airport, and a plane is ready to take off to a straight shot to Sydney, Australia. The longest recorded flight, 19 and a half hours called an ultra-marathon. 

This flight not only a tremendous amount of time it is also very demanding to the people on it. The goal of the flight is to get used to the time difference between where you are and the destination. This means that right as the flight starts the time switches to Australia. Sydney, Australia is a whopping 15 hours ahead of New York. This also means that no sleeping, until evening in Sydney. Passengers are instructed to stay awake for at least 6 hours. 

The passengers are monitored with light readers on their wrists and have been asked to log their activities such as exercise, meals and sleep. Also the passengers have been under observation for a few days and will be monitored for 21 days in total. 

The six passengers are human guinea pigs to a research experiment called project sunrise. To see how a 20 hour flight could affect someone. The airline wants to begin flying the time-saving route commercially as soon as 2022, to reduce the so demanding jet lag people experience when taking such flights. According to The Seattle Times many of the 6 passengers prefer the 20 hour flight to the normal layover.