Couple of odd questions.

[AeroplaneDriver]

According to my old Flight Sargent, long haul flights don't fly in straight lines, they use great arcs and thermals to preserve fuel although on a chart it does look like a straight line but it's the curvature of the Earth.

The 'great circle' route is shortest distance between two points on a sphere.  Never heard of using thermals to save fuel.  Altitude changes to take advantage of winds might be what he meant. 

Take off is into the wind and landing is also into the wind,  but if not the plane will plummet like a giant breeze block.

It just takes a bit more runway.  Some airports operate most of the time with tailwinds for local noise considerations or terrain issues.  Not a huge deal, though most airliners have a 10kt tailwind limit for takeoff and landing. 

As to the smell I always thought it was urine, where the squaddies had missed the bucket on a
 C-130 as there's no toilets for the passengers just the crew.
I never made it to Sargent during my time with the Royal Auxiliary Air Force, trade Assistant Airtraffic Controller 1986-1997.

[rickshaw]

According to my old Flight Sargent, long haul flights don't fly in straight lines, they use great arcs and thermals to preserve fuel although on a chart it does look like a straight line but it's the curvature of the Earth.
Take off is into the wind and landing is also into the wind,  but if not the plane will plummet like a giant breeze block.
As to the smell I always thought it was urine, where the squaddies had missed the bucket on a
 C-130 as there's no toilets for the passengers just the crew.
I never made it to Sargent during my time with the Royal Auxiliary Air Force, trade Assistant Airtraffic Controller 1986-1997.

That may be for the RAF.  The RAAF Hercules regularly flew with a chemical loo for all passengers/crew mounted in the rear of the cabin.  Perhaps it was because of the longer flights they used to undertake?

[McColm]

I've flown on a CP-140 and they have carpets compared to the P-3C Orion which it's based on.

[Old Wombat]

Don't you just love the education offered in these discussions? 

Always!

[Rick Lowe]

Don't you just love the education offered in these discussions? 

Always!

Dittoo 

[jcf]

This may be of assistance:
East African Airways Super VC10 Navigation & Performance Manual

These charts give fuel consumption by T/O Weight, altitude, air temperature and duration of flight:
Weight and fuel flow for M0.84 cruise(3-4-2 thru 3-4-5)

Main page of site:
A Little VC10derness