San Francisco 49ers coach Jim Harbaugh has said that he uses his team's long flight distances to watch tapes of both his team and their opponents, and hopes that he will have more long journeys after this weekend.

His 49ers side take on the Carolina Panthers on Sunday, having beaten the Green Bay Packers on the road last time out.

Should they win, a trip to the Seattle could well be on the cards, before a potential Super Bowl appearance back on the East Coast in New York to conclude their season. If Harbaugh has it his way, the 49ers will be racking up the air miles before the campaign is over.

He told 49ers.com of his flight home from Wisconsin: "Everybody's experienced a happy flight in their own way. For me, it's talking to the players and having some conversations on the plane and then I sit there in my seat and I've got the video of the game that I'm watching.

"And then also, our planes have a TV, so you could watch some of the highlights of the other games and a highlight comes on I want to see, I can press the pause on my video. I'm just sitting there, just me. All I need now is a cup of coffee and just happy as I could possibly be doing those things.

"Then when I run out of the video to watch, I start watching the Carolina tape and my mood starts to change as we start to land and start focusing on the Carolina Panthers. It's a happy flight for me. Other people may experience that happy flight in a different way, but that's how I do it. It's very nice."

Harbaugh led the 49ers to the Super Bowl last season, where they were beaten by his brother John's Baltimore Ravens.