If you've ever wanted to set a world record and have five thousand dollars just lying around
well i have some good news for you you can set the record for the fastest circumnavigation of
the world all on regularly scheduled commercial flights before you think about jumping on a plane
and just flying around the north pole technically crossing every line of longitude there are some
basic ground rules and they're not even my rules they're the rules of the federacion aeronautic
international the fai sets the rules for all aviation related records and according to them for
to count you have to fly 22 858.8 miles the length of the tropic of cancer that's basically the only
rule start and end in the same place and you could set this record the current record holder is david
springett a former insurance broker from the uk his route took him from los angeles to london
to bahrain to singapore to bangkok to manila to tokyo to honolulu and finally back to los
angeles all in 44 hours and six minutes but today that route would take you a lot longer you see
springer flew in 1980 arguably the best year to ever set this record for 27 years the concord
shuttled passengers across the atlantic at more than twice the speed of a regular airline
but in 1980 british airways tried out a new route from london to singapore through bahrain
this route was quickly cancelled after the malaysian government complained about the noise
in total this route was only flown three times and david springett was a bored one that means he was
able to travel this section of the journey nearly 7 000 miles in only 8 hours and 40 minutes instead
of the 13 hours this route would take today so you might be thinking your world record will come
with a caveat world's fastest circumnavigation non-supersonic but actually no you can demolish
even the conchords record because you have an advantage even more powerful than the concorde
the rise of long haul flights just before noon on march 1st 2001 a continental airlines 777
took off from new york new jersey and flew north it kept flying north until north became south
eventually touching down at chet blackhawk airport in hong kong 16 hours later becoming the world's
longest commercial flight at the time this was a big deal connecting business travelers between two
of the world's commercial hubs but today this route doesn't even make the list of the top 20
longest flights long haul flights have grown exponentially even in just the last few years
and with it it allows for an even faster world record using only three flights beating both the
current subsonic record at 53 hours and 14 minutes and david springet's 44 hour and 6 minute record
so what's the fastest you can fly around the world today let's say you start looking the week
this video comes out in may of 2021 on friday may 28th you leave los angeles international airport
for paris charles de gaulle at 9pm landing 10 hours and 50 minutes later the next day at 4 50pm
after a two hour layover you catch a ride on japan airlines flight 46 leaving paris at 7pm
and landing in tokyo 11 hours and 55 minutes later then three hours later you board your
last flight from tokyo's heneta international back to your starting destination in los angeles
the last leg of the journey takes 9 hours and 50 minutes and thanks to the international dateline
you actually land 6 hours earlier on the same day in total your trip lasted from friday at 9 00 pm
to sunday at 10 50 am a total of 37 hours and 50 minutes beating the previous subsonic
record by 30 percent and even feeding spring its supersonic record by more than six hours
in total these three flights would cost you four thousand two hundred and twenty
dollars a world record and all you had to do was sit in a chair but if you need a hand raising the
money to beat this record here's how we can help some more specifics about the route are included
in the description the route we came up with takes 37 hours and 50 minutes and meets the 22 858 mile
requirement if you can come up with a faster route on regularly scheduled commercial flights
leave it in the comments below whoever comes up with the fastest route will win 50 a nice dent
in the 4 000 you'll need to make this journey and if you don't want to research flights well then
tell us what you thought of the video instead and remember there's always more to learn.