Cloudship

I don't know what the longest one was, but I remember in the late 80's/early 90's there were quite a few Turboprop routes that were over 2 hours. Back then you used to get light meals on them. I don't remember them being that terrible, as the flights were rarely full and you could see so much more out the window.

JMN57

Funny you should mention turbo-props. My personal most hated aircraft was the Swearingen Metro. I was chatting Monday with a soon to retire AA pilot and we ended up talking about that plane. He called it the "San Antonio sewer pipe" - a name I'd never heard for that aircraft but entirely appropriate (it was made by Fairchild in San Antonio). Can't recall the specific routes/timings I'd flown on it but I guarantee that any flight on that claustrophobic torture chamber felt like a 100 hours.

cbn42

Speaking of turboprops, there are many isolated places in the world where they use them. For example, much of the inter-island flying in Hawaii is on turboprops. How do they get these planes out there? Do they fly them there from the mainland, with some sort of in-flight refueling? If they do, these positioning flights are likely the longest turboprop flights in the world.

EAR111pt2

In college, flew DEN-GUC/GUC-DEN on various turbo props.

JMN57

I'd bet on a boat.

leonidas

They actually fly them.

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trave...all-plane.html

http://www.airliners.net/aviation-fo...d.main/154336/

WHBM

There actually weren't that many long-haul turboprop aircraft, many carriers went straight from piston aircraft to jets around 1960, and the US manufacturers never did a long haul turboprop type.

Longest flight I can identify is BOAC London to Sydney on a Bristol Britannia. In 1958 this left London at 12.30 on (say) Monday, arriving Sydney at 22.00 Wednesday. With clock changes that's about 48 elapsed hours. There were seven intermediate stops. The Britannia didn't last long on such routes, only a couple of years, they took over from Lockheed Constellations and were in turn replaced by the jets arriving. It also had poor reliability; the aircraft turned round in Sydney and came home again, where on-time arrivals were rare and delays of 24 or even 48 hours were regular.

Some turboprops had more noise/vibration than others, an effect still apparent today. The Bristol Britannia was by all accounts (I never rode in one) notably free of such effects, and was commonly nicknamed "the Whispering Giant". This was not true of it's contemporary big competitor from just down the road, the Vickers Vanguard, and I believe the Lockheed Electra was pretty much a thunderer as well. The Electra was used by Qantas on a notable long-haul operation, with a string of stops across the Indian Ocean, from Sydney to Johannesburg, South Africa, for some years, but wasn't really intended for such operation.

VivoPerLei

UA headquarters is probably mulling that over right now

slawecki

[QUOTE=WHBM;21093533

Some turboprops had more noise/vibration than others, an effect still apparent today. The Bristol Britannia was by all accounts (I never rode in one) notably free of such effects, and was commonly nicknamed "the Whispering Giant". This was not true of it's contemporary big competitor from just down the road, the Vickers Vanguard, and I believe the Lockheed Electra was pretty much a thunderer as well. The Electra was used by Qantas on a notable long-haul operation, with a string of stops across the Indian Ocean, from Sydney to Johannesburg, South Africa, for some years, but wasn't really intended for such operation.[/QUOTE]

before reinforcements, the wings fell off a couple of the electra.

follonica2

Spring 1972.

Piedmont YS-11.

BWI/DCA/LYH/TRI/TYS.

I was in no hurry. Good thing. I remember it as 4+ hours.

adampenrith

Aug 29 1968 CHC MEL QF Electra 5 hours 1700 miles or so

Catusa

We took a flight MRU-RRG (Mauritius to Rodrigues Island) on Air Mauritius. The flt was 1h30 in an older ATR but what made it more stressful for me was that there was nothing around to land if we needed too.

CMK10

Nothing impressive here, EWR-RDU on a US Dash-8 Q400. It clocks in at 416 Miles or on the day I took it, 1hr23.

CenterWaters

I love Saabs! Quirky Swedish cars that can no longer be bought.

Oh wait... you said turbo-props... never mind... 3 hours in one must suck... sorry...

Several years ago, I was inside a Continental Express Dash-8(?) while it sat on the taxiway for 2 hours in a snow storm. The actual flight was only supposed to be 50 minutes. In the end, I was inside that tin can for almost 4 hours. This was before the invention of smartphones and tablets and e-readers... so it was quite boring.

jozdemir

I had to do a couple of visits to a mine site I supported in regional QLD, Australia on a C208 Caravan.

About 3.5 hours all up, the route went OOL-BNE-MCY-TDR, 330 miles on the nose according to gcmap