>> But right now, all the money in the world won’t get you from Sydney to the Big Apple or U.K. without a pit stop, because commercial planes just don’t have that kind of range.
This makes it sound like this long a flight is a physical impossibility today. However three minutes of searching leads me to believe a few commercial aircraft have indeed made a similar or longer trip. Not to mention any military aircraft that might do this as well, I'm sure there exists an amount of money that would get you on such an aircraft today :)
Not currently possible economically partially because of the weight restrictions you end up with and in some cases due to taking slightly longer routes to stay in range of other airports for an emergency (ETOPS). But it's changing fast, because PER-LHR which is about to start seemed crazy not that long ago.
The problem is the range can vary depending on the weather (headwinds etc) and you need a buffer (if you're left in a holding pattern landing). If you're an airline making a scheduled flight you're not basing it on "can this airplane make it" but "can this airplane make it once a day there and back through wind and snow"
This makes it sound like this long a flight is a physical impossibility today. However three minutes of searching leads me to believe a few commercial aircraft have indeed made a similar or longer trip. Not to mention any military aircraft that might do this as well, I'm sure there exists an amount of money that would get you on such an aircraft today :)