Author Topic: AR18 Transportation Primary Options  (Read 38541 times)

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Offline apskip

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AR18 Transportation Primary Options
« on: February 12, 2011, 05:55:35 PM »
It's time for another of my attempts to get the transportation schedules for Amazing Race 18 into focus. I have used as the timing of each leg the excellent work done by woden in the front of the TIMELINE thread.  Here is what I came up with:

Leg 1 11/20 depart LAX for SYD
QF12 departed at 2326, but encountered a major problem en route, diverted to Honolulu to land there at 0159 on 10/21 and subsequently in Sydney at 0959 (runway but 1047am leaving airport) 10/22. This had the 8 teams quickest to find the clue in the Palm Springs area playing catchup. It is critical that teams get back into competitive range by getting to the next place (Broken Hill) in time to do a leg and catch the twice-a-week Indian Pacific Railroad.

QF108 departed at 2348  with 3 teams last teams to bring Qantas airplanes to Phil in Palm Springs and arrived 0956 on 11/22

tasks around Sydney

Leg 2 11/22 ZL878 flies SYD BHQ 1820 2010
11/23 ZL9578 0605 0755
ZL9596 0630 0820

tasks around Broken Hill

Leg 3 in order to get on the Indian Pacific Railroad, teams must be ready to go by 1830 on 11/23, which implies a record short pit stop
This train arrives in Sydney at 1015 on 10/24.
Teams must transfer to SYD airport and fly to Tokyo. Choices on 10/24 are:

CX100 1539 2144 SYD HKG, connecting with CX524 HKG 0245 0732 (note - late by about 100 minutes leaving and 92 minutes arriving)

QF21 2204 0613 SYD NRT

tasks around Tokyo

leg 4 Tokyo to Kunming Sat. 11/27
flight choices:
NH5711 NRT CKG (Chonqing) 0855 1515, connecting to MU5722 CKG KMG 1555 1710

CA422 NRT PEK (Beijing) 0900 1200, connecting with CA4170 PEK KMG 1415 1740

NH919 NRT PVG (Shanghai) 0940 1210, connecting with CZ6799 PVG KMG 1420 1745

MU522 NRT PVG 1155 1920, connecting with MU748 PVG KMG 2100 0025

transfer to rail to reach Lijiang, 524 km away on 11/28:
train K9606/9607 dep. Kunming 2200 arr. Lijiang East 0710
or train K9602/K9603 dep. Kunming 2141 arr. Lijiang East 0523
less likely:
train 5652/5653 dep. Kunming 0822 11/28 arr. Liang East 1956

tasks around Lijiang

leg 5 Lijiang to Kunming 11/30
train K9601/9604 dep. 0810 arr. 1542
or train K9610/9611 dep. Lijiang East 1021 Kunming 1758
or possibly on 11/29 train K9609/K9612 dep. 2110 arr. 11/30 0559

Kunming to Kolkata
The best possible flight in nonstop MU555 KMG CCU 2355 2350

An alternative combination is MU757 KMG KTM (Kathmandu) Wed. 12/1  0830 0915, connecting with AI9414 KTM DEL 1000 1125, connecting with AI112 DEL CCU 1330 1540

leg 6 tasks around Kolkata

leg 7 Kolkata to Varanasi 12/2
Here is where I deviate from what has been reported by woden, as "Teams seen in departure area of CCU (Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose International Airport) on 12/2  at apx 3:10pm ; Jen/LaKisha booking Kingfisher Airlines flight" is not possible on that day. The reason is that the few flights into and out of Varanasi airport are scheduled early in the day. There is no Kingfisher Airlines flight departing Varanasi at that time. The latest flight is 9W2461 CCU VNS dep. 1105 , stopping in Lucknow and arriving Varanasi 1400.

A team at CCU airport at 3pm will be forced to either take a train to get to Varanasi or do a combination of flights through Delhi the next morning.

tasks around Varanasi

leg 8 Varanasi to Vienna starting 12/3
Choices of flights from Varanasi to Delhi:
IT336 1358 1521
9W724 1530 1707
SG119 1615 1750

Flight from Delhi to Vienna on Saturday 12/4:
OS34 0254 0556

tasks around Vienna

leg 9 Vienna to Vaduz Liechtenstein to Zermatt 12/6 and 12/7
Teams must get to Vienna main rail station for this 713km train journey to Feldkirch across most of east to west Austria:
dep. Vienna 0740 arrive Feldkirch 1509
From Feldkirch teams will want to take a Swiss postal bus to Vaduz about 30 minutes away

tasks around Liechtenstein

After completion of the major task in Liechtenstein, teams will want to go west and then south to reach Zermatt.

First, teams must take another Swiss postal bus to Buchs about 30 minutes away.
then take a IC train leaving as indicated:
dep. Buchs  0710  0805  0910  1012  1110 1212  1310  1412  1510  1910
arr. Zermatt  1152 1314  1352  1514  1614  1734  1814  19??  1952  2344

tasks around Zermatt

leg 10 Zermatt to Rio de Janeiro dep. 12/9 arr. 12/10
This leg starts with an IC train from Zermatt to Zurich flughafen (airport). after every hour a train leaves at 13 minutes after or 39 minutes and gets to the airport at about 3 hours 37 minutes later.

Flights choices Zurich to Rio are:
LX656 ZRH CDG 1640 1755, connecting with JJ8055 CDG GIG 2100 0455+1

AF5109 ZRH CDG 1945 2110, connecting with AF442 CDG GIG 2220 0635+1

LH5777 ZRH FRA 1625 1730, connecting with JJ8069 FRA GIG 2015 0447+1

TP927 ZRH LIS 1905 2055, connecting with LIS GIG 2330 0650+1

LX092 ZRH GRU 2240 0645+1, connecting with JJ8081 GRU GIG 0940+1 1041+1

tasks in and around Rio de Janeiro

leg 11 Rio de Janeiro 12/11 and probably 12/12


leg 12 12/12 It appears that teams get to Sao Paulo airport by late evening on 12/12. Why this is the case is totally unclear, since there are several good flights from Rio (GIG) to Miami:

JJ8056 2208 0352+1
AA904 2225 0348+1

From Sao Paulo (GRU), here are the flights:
AA906 2352 0509+1
JJ8090 0005 (12/13) 0539
AA930 0336 0936 (departed and arrived 90 minutes late)
AA198 1043 1526 (major delay due to reported problems with pilots; teams were switched to AA930)





  

 
« Last Edit: March 28, 2011, 01:57:22 PM by apskip »

Offline georgiapeach

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Re: AR18 Transportation Primary Options
« Reply #1 on: February 14, 2011, 10:18:23 PM »
Leg 1 11/20 depart LAX for SYD
QF12 departed at 2326, but encountered a major problem en route, landing in Sydney 18 hours late at 0159 on 10/23. This had the 3 teams quickest to find the clue in the Palm Springs area playing serious catchup. I suspect that World Race Productions would have altered the planned schedule in some way to provide some possibility of these teams getting back into competitive range. One way obviously was to have the first leg become a TBC so that teams could get to the next place (Broken Hill) in time to do a leg and catch the twice-a-week Indian Pacific Railroad.

QF108 departed at 2348  with 8 teams and arrived 0956 on 11/22


We know this is not correct.... the flight arrived much closer than that as all teams were seen within an hour or so of each other during the tasks... It is correct that the the first flight, the preferred one, ended up arriving later than the second less desirable flight.

And I can tell you 100% that this leg was a planned TBC...nothing was changed or adjusted due to the flight delay or a favorite team being last.
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Offline DrRox

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Re: AR18 Transportation Primary Options
« Reply #2 on: February 14, 2011, 11:14:04 PM »
Well now I am all confused......(situation normal). I am going to have to go back and check the sightings thread. I thought that QF12 had 8 teams on it and arrived one hour after QF108 with 3 teams. QF12 had to land in Honolulu to disembark an ill passenger. QF12 should arrived first, but because of the delay, it arrived about one hour later than QF108. Oh well, its not the first time, nor the last time, I have to go a back and check.........cherrio!!
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Offline maf

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Re: AR18 Transportation Primary Options
« Reply #3 on: February 15, 2011, 12:15:28 AM »
According to the web QF12 left LAX at 22:26 on the 20th. It diverted and landed in Honolulu at 01:59 on the 21st. It then left Honolulu at 03:39 and finally landed in Sydney at 09:59 on the 21st.

So the flights landed within 3 minutes of each other.
« Last Edit: February 16, 2011, 03:47:00 PM by maf »

Offline apskip

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Re: AR18 Transportation Primary Options
« Reply #4 on: February 15, 2011, 07:51:20 AM »
I stand corrected. I had looked at the diversion and assumed that the flight continuation from Honolulu would have to leave on 11/22 (and arrive Sydney 11/23), but it was reported to do this starting in LAX:

   2226 Sat. 20 Nov. - scheduled arrival 0800 Mon 22-Nov-2010 (flight diverted, contact airline)
Actual:         01:59 - Sun 21-Nov-2010 (runway)  Note: that this was an error because it is impossible to arrive before the departure.

Now, anyone who is knowledgeable about the International Date Line knows that you must add a day when you cross it east-to-west, so I adjusted the 0159 Sun.21Nov. to the same time on Nov. 23. I had made an error in taking the scheduled arrival time as the departure time.

So, what really happened is this:

QF 12       Qantas Airways    

scheduled dep. HNL 02:45 Nov. 21   actual departure 03:39 Nov. 21   arr. SYD  09:59 Nov. 22

maf was close, but his information on the the date of arrival in SYD appears to be incorrect, as was my original report.

« Last Edit: February 15, 2011, 08:14:22 AM by apskip »


Offline Coutzy

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Re: AR18 Transportation Primary Options
« Reply #5 on: February 15, 2011, 07:54:46 AM »
According to flightstats.com QF12 left LAX at 22:26 on the 20th. It diverted and landed in Honolulu at 01:59 on the 21st. It then left Honolulu at 03:39 and finally landed in Sydney at 09:59 on the 21st.

So the flights landed within 3 minutes of each other.

Teams definitely left customs more than 3 minutes apart. The leading teams were waiting on the platform for a train for longer than this.

Offline maf

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Re: AR18 Transportation Primary Options
« Reply #6 on: February 15, 2011, 09:10:10 AM »
maf was close, but his information on the the date of arrival in SYD appears to be incorrect, as was my original report.

Yep, I missed the date change there. They landed on the 22:nd.

As for the time difference, looking at it in more detail I see that QF108 arrived at the gate at 09:56. In contrast the time they have for QF12, 09:59, is when it touched down on the runway.  QF108 took 7 minutes to reach the gate form the runway.

So in the best of worlds we can assume that QF12 arrived at a gate 10 minutes after QF108. But there are many unknowns. There could have been gate trouble (not unlikely since they were late). And the passengers of QF12 probably arrived at immigration just after QF108, which could lead to even more delays.

But in the end we are just nitpicking here. I think we all agree that the flights arrived fairly close but the teams on the second flight got the better deal.

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Re: AR18 Transportation Primary Options
« Reply #7 on: February 15, 2011, 01:41:27 PM »
This is from the Timeline thread by Neobie......

QF 12 to Sydney (via Honolulu), 2226-0959 (scheduled 2225-0800), eight teams
QF 108 to Sydney, 2348-0956 (scheduled 2350-0925), three teams

Sydney Time (11h ahead of GMT)
9.56am: QF 108 with three teams arrives at Kingston Intl Airport.
9.59am: QF 12 with eight teams arrives at Kingston Intl Airport.
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Offline apskip

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Re: AR18 Transportation Primary Options
« Reply #8 on: February 16, 2011, 09:57:07 AM »
This is from the Timeline thread by Neobie......

QF 12 to Sydney (via Honolulu), 2226-0959 (scheduled 2225-0800), eight teams
QF 108 to Sydney, 2348-0956 (scheduled 2350-0925), three teams

Sydney Time (11h ahead of GMT)
9.56am: QF 108 with three teams arrives at Kingston Intl Airport.
9.59am: QF 12 with eight teams arrives at Kingston Intl Airport.


Dr. Rox,

Neobie and you are both unusually reliable sources, but I think you are both mixed up on this. The first plane to depart LAX, QF12, carried the first 3 teams. The later departure, QF108, carried the 8 teams. QF108 with the 8 teams did land before QF12 due to the diversion to Honolulu.

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Re: AR18 Transportation Primary Options
« Reply #9 on: February 16, 2011, 10:13:18 AM »
This is from the Timeline thread by Neobie......

QF 12 to Sydney (via Honolulu), 2226-0959 (scheduled 2225-0800), eight teams
QF 108 to Sydney, 2348-0956 (scheduled 2350-0925), three teams

Sydney Time (11h ahead of GMT)
9.56am: QF 108 with three teams arrives at Kingston Intl Airport.
9.59am: QF 12 with eight teams arrives at Kingston Intl Airport.


Dr. Rox,

Neobie and you are both unusually reliable sources, but I think you are both mixed up on this. The first plane to depart LAX, QF12, carried the first 3 teams. The later departure, QF108, carried the 8 teams. QF108 with the 8 teams did land before QF12 due to the diversion to Honolulu.


Well we all will certainly see who is correct come this Sunday night.....
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Offline georgiapeach

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Re: AR18 Transportation Primary Options
« Reply #10 on: February 16, 2011, 10:26:05 AM »
I think our main Timeline is reversed. eeek.

Quote
FLIGHT INFO: QF108 (DEP 11:50pm; ARR 9:56am) for Margie/Luke, Jaime/Cara, Jet/Cord, Ron/Christina, Kent/Vyxsin, Zev/Justin, Mel/Mike, Herb/Nate; QF12 (DEP; ARR 9:59am) for Gary/Mallory, Amanda/Kris, Jen/LaKisha

The 8 teams were on QF12 which was delayed. The should have been best but not.

http://forum.realityfanforum.com/index.php/topic,23690.msg575398.html#msg575398

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Offline DrRox

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Re: AR18 Transportation Primary Options
« Reply #11 on: February 16, 2011, 10:32:02 AM »
I think our main Timeline is reversed. eeek.

Quote
FLIGHT INFO: QF108 (DEP 11:50pm; ARR 9:56am) for Margie/Luke, Jaime/Cara, Jet/Cord, Ron/Christina, Kent/Vyxsin, Zev/Justin, Mel/Mike, Herb/Nate; QF12 (DEP; ARR 9:59am) for Gary/Mallory, Amanda/Kris, Jen/LaKisha

The 8 teams were on QF12 which was delayed. The should have been best but not.

http://forum.realityfanforum.com/index.php/topic,23690.msg575398.html#msg575398



Yep
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Offline apskip

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Re: AR18 Transportation Primary Options
« Reply #12 on: February 16, 2011, 10:34:40 AM »
Peach,

I am confused now. What is absolutely clear is that QF12 was the first flight scheduled out of LAX and the later to land in Sydney. How could that flight possibly not have the first 3 teams that won the earlier departure time by finding the QANTAS message on paper airplanes first? The 8 teams logically were on the later flight from LAX, which was the earliest to land in Sydney due to the diversion of AF12 to Honolulu. Why is that incorrect?

Offline georgiapeach

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Re: AR18 Transportation Primary Options
« Reply #13 on: February 16, 2011, 10:40:17 AM »
Who says the 3 teams find the message first? :lol:

The 8 teams are 100% on the diverted flight.
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Re: AR18 Transportation Primary Options
« Reply #14 on: February 16, 2011, 10:43:14 AM »
The first 8 teams to find the correct paper airplane got tickets on QF12, the "Winner's Flight." The last 3 teams to find the correct paper airplane got tickets on the "Loser's Flight", QF108. But due to the medical emergency, the "Loser's Flight" and the "Winner's Flight" got reversed. I sure bet that Luke's hand and fingers were exhausted after that flight.

Those of us that were onlline that night, discussed the irony of this happenstance.
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Offline georgiapeach

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Re: AR18 Transportation Primary Options
« Reply #15 on: February 16, 2011, 10:54:04 AM »
It is a little odd that the top 8 not 3 were rewarded the best flight, that is different from the norm, but yes, that is the way it happened.
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Re: AR18 Transportation Primary Options
« Reply #16 on: February 16, 2011, 11:01:03 AM »
It is a little odd that the top 8 not 3 were rewarded the best flight, that is different from the norm, but yes, that is the way it happened.

It's more the norm for the history of the race......I remember TAR 5,6,7 did it that way and the flights always got mixed up. In TAR6, teams left Chicago headed for Iceland....the two flights that went east to Boston (I think) and DC got delayed by the hurricane. The last flight connection through Minneapolis, got there first. I think the split in TAR6, was 3/4/3 on the flights......but that was a long time ago too.
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Re: AR18 Transportation Primary Options
« Reply #17 on: February 16, 2011, 11:16:49 AM »
Neobie collated all the information from the Live Sightings thread in this post #4 on the Timeline thread. I guess woden got confused by the flight reversals.

http://forum.realityfanforum.com/index.php/topic,23631.0.html
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Re: AR18 Transportation Primary Options
« Reply #18 on: February 23, 2011, 01:57:31 PM »
Dr. Rox and Neobie were correct on how many teams got on which flight at LAX. I have modified post 1 accordingly.

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Re: AR18 Transportation Primary Options
« Reply #19 on: February 26, 2011, 09:34:55 AM »
I want to examine the speculation by Dr. Rox that World Race Productions chartered 2 flights on Tuesaday 11/23/10 to get teams from Sydney to Broken Hill quickly, necessitated by the Indian Pacific train schedule back from Broken Hill to Sydney. Those flights are:
ZL9678 and ZL9596

The numbering system used by Regional Express has only 3-digit numbers for any flights from Sydney, including 2 daily to Broken Hill. If the ultimate destination is Adelaide then a 4-digit flight number beginning with a "4" to Adelaide from a connecting point can happen. If the ultimate destination is Melbourne then a 4-digit flight number beginning with a "3" to Melbourne from a connecting point can happen. There are some 4-digit flight numbers beginning with a "5" elsewhere in the Regional Express system, but no 4-digit flight numbers beginning with a "9". I conclude that Dr. Rox is correct. We should see soon enough.


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Re: AR18 Transportation Primary Options
« Reply #20 on: February 26, 2011, 09:39:19 AM »
It isn't speculation.We have the sign up sheets.

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Re: AR18 Transportation Primary Options
« Reply #21 on: February 27, 2011, 08:21:27 AM »
Peach,

Whether they flew Regional Express is not in question (they clearly did). The question is whether they flew charter or regularly scheduled flights. You may have missed Dr. Rox's hypothesis since it is buried somewhere in the ep. 2 thread. It is that they flew charters because those flight numbers were not on the schedule for any other day. My research was to support that hypothesis.

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Re: AR18 Transportation Primary Options
« Reply #22 on: February 27, 2011, 08:23:21 AM »
Oh okay! Pretty sure the spoiler guy in Broken Hills at the airport said charter as well.
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Re: AR18 Transportation Primary Options
« Reply #23 on: February 27, 2011, 09:20:11 AM »
The How, Where and When TAR racers were leaving Sydney was in no way speculation on my part. The info came from the racers themselves talking to "boots on the ground" @ the Town Square rally point. FT/BE asked one girl about Rex Airlines and Broken Hill and also Jamie/Cara asked another person. Both teams said they were flying there on charter flights the next morning.

You can see all this in:
Spec thread  about posts #264-312
Live Sightings thread   about posts #260 to 303
Location thread     about post 66

What wasnt showing up at the time was confirmation in the different flight data sites people normally check. The flights were first found in the Kingston International Airport flight departure lists, long before they showed up in flightstats.
« Last Edit: February 27, 2011, 09:24:12 AM by DrRox »
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Re: AR18 Transportation Primary Options
« Reply #24 on: February 27, 2011, 09:21:29 AM »
Thanks! I was thinking we had some more info somewhere. :lol:

But love all the research too!
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