» A Flight on Neecenow: London to Sydney 2020.

You get to the airport, the required three hours before the departure time. Your relatives envy your flight in the newest airliner, which will see you at your destination faster than it will take to get aboard.

Six years ago you’d have settled for some local destination, travel time to anywhere further was just a bit much, as well as the fares, which have come down in price. After saying good-bye to all your family, you embark your way through the circus of the terminal, and finally are allowed aboard. Neecenau, at first, seems an anti-climax, barring the lighting is set to a level in keeping with Sydney. The seats look as comfortable as they used to, but ordinarily, where you are seated there would be a tiny, usually smeared, fogged up window that no-one could ever be bothered looking out of – if you did for more than a few minutes, it would mean a trip to the chiropractor to fix your aching neck.

Personal television eyewear are handed out on gaining your seat, just like a pair of sunnies only with boxes for lenses, so cool, until you take them off and see everyone else with weird expressions of wonder on their faces.  It has connecting control panel and the selections are astounding.  The views go from the one screen to that selected instantly; up front, behind, below, beside, above and the amazing observatory view, a system that, apart from the latter, actually works on the ground too. There are the usual movies, TV shows, music videos and other things like games selectable: you smile seeing the exterior view options of a train and car for those whom fear flying – making them know it; that they’re actually on a bus or car. Freaky. 

Pretty soon, the captain calls in a similar fashion to the way it used to be, the safety brief though includes details of the event of depressurization. Looking around you notice, like the good old days, passengers around either couldn’t care less or, bizarrely, some kids have hopeful looks – the ultimate rollercoaster? You smile.

You watch the aircraft taxi away from the terminal and think of your family, saying good bye is so hard, even for just a little while. The airport is still the way it used to be. Even supersonic jets proposed prior to the AFG would have required a runway more like a freeway half way to the destination, new airport terminals and goodness knows what else to waste some-ones money. What a jet - and we haven’t even left the ground yet.

Lining up to take-off is fairly normal, the acceleration is about the same as usual also too, almost boring because as you’re in Neecenow, you’d like to think it’s like a rocket. The climb phase is much like a subsonic aircraft for the first 10 minutes while leaving the city. Then, acceleration kicks in again – about the same as the family car on a good day - and the aircraft pitches into a steeper climb. Cabin pressure remains as it did on the ground: in fact it’s increasing slightly due to the big high of the New South Wales coast. Summer days, summer fun, I can’t wait.  The cabin temperature is slowly increasing to emulate Sydney terminal’s air-conditioning. It is meant to ease the transition, but I think it’s there to impress technophobes.

Entering the cruise altitude about a half an hour after take-off of 120,000 feet, you look down, wow; it’s a long way down, from the side view the curvature of the Earth is pronounced. It’s like you’re in orbit. Selecting the observatory function has the moon: at this height at the top of the atmosphere you can see everything so clearly, you’ve heard rumors about college kids taking an AFG flight just to watch this function – nothing else: you can see why.

The flight data page reveals all the technical data of the flight. Currently flying 9060 kilometres per hour, that’s two and a half kilometre in one second. It crosses your mind about counting after a flash of lightning, a faster than light thought, but actually, the 3 seconds count to the thunder? Yeah - 330 metres per second is the speed of sound or, what? A kilometre in say 3 seconds and a mile in just under 5, Neecenow is over seven times faster than that, it’s just mind blowing.

The crew brings out a fine meal, and you start really enjoying the experience of being here. The interior noise is less than the old jets, ha - they used to make do with 4 propellers right outside the window, as well as 4 not so quite piston engines! This is as quiet as the original sailing ships used for the same trip, though AFG is a few months faster. Neecenow makes subsonic airliners seem like prop planes, you had to take a trip in a non-BAT subsonic recently, ugh, never again, it was like a Model T chugging along. AFG has noise insulation as well as active noise attenuation – there still a hum there, but it’s inspiring, not annoying. Your friend Sarah has a house right on the low approach path into Frankfurt – she’s a big fan of the AFG, too. Not that she likes planes; it’s the noise she dislikes.

Only a couple of hours later - it seems like no time at all - the descent begins into the other side of the world. The aircraft hasn’t altered its track since it entered the climb phase. Not like a subsonic that would meander around like a drunken canary, chasing ground beacons and wasting billions of litres of fuel every year, instead of plain direct routing. Seems dumb now, but then all that air-traffic, and very few height allocations; you guess they did as well as they could.

The descent is like re-entering from orbit and there are some spectacular sights of Australia as you come down to earth again. Just beautiful, it is like being reborn. They didn’t say anything in the catalogs that this is included in the ticket price. They should charge more, as this will probably be better than the holiday, you look across at the family next to you whose kid is crying because of his brother, and you think this is definitely better than their holiday will be. Fortunately this time, his parents select the same screen, and he is as enchanted as only an angel could be. This must be what its like, to be an angel, to be, to know such serenity, such awe.

You see the NSW coast and then it all but disappears out of the front view, this is to decelerate through the speed of sound, after this a standard approach is set up, it feels again like a subsonic airliner, without the noise, and the jet lag for that. You recall the cotton mouth and the dizzy feeling accompanying it for days after on the old flights aboard subsonic airliners. Thank goodness that’s gone, sure, it’s still weird seeing the sun rise when it would go down, but there is no acute dehydration or fatigue from not being able to sleep.

HYT sets down in sunny Sydney, you’ll be at the beach in only two hours, and its only 3 hours after the engines were started - man that’s travelling. It’s a beautiful day.