"Colin Kingsbury" wrote...
According to my brother-in-law who flies long-haul int'l routes for UPS, the
trans-Atlantic routes are typically out of radar coverage for more time than
the Pacific routes. At least for them, most of their routes go great-circle
up over Alaska, back down along the Siberian coast and on to Japan, Taipei,
or Manila, and are under radar service almost the whole time. Atlantic
routes on the other hand have to be out over the water between Newfoundland,
Iceland, and the UK. But I suppose the NRT-HNL run would have you over the
water quite a while, probably well beyond ETOPS limits.

I fly long-haul int'l routes for Atlas Air. In the past 4 years, I have flown
trans-Pacific routes about 90% of the time.

We seldom fly the routes over Russia. When flying on the "NOPAC" tracks between
Anchorage and Japan, there is a significant ATC radar coverage "hole" between
Shemya and Japan, and a smaller one east of Shemya. Once you go off the NOPAC
tracks, the size of the non-radar coverage holes increase significantly. Often,
due to significant Jet Stream winds, we fly well south of the NOPAC tracks,
sometimes as far south as Midway Island. On those routes there is NO ATC radar
coverage from coast-out in Japan to coast-in in the US (LAX or SFO).

IIRC, the LAX-HNL route is the longest overwater route flown under ETOPS.
Between HNL and Sydney, there are more emergency airports available, but no
radar coverage after leaving HNL control until nearing Sydney.

Also, when the NAT tracks over the Atlantic drift northward, Iceland control has
radar coverage for a period.