JohnT Posted February 9, 2020 Share Posted February 9, 2020 Just working away and heard the hourly news bulletin saying a British Airways 747 just made the fastest subsonic crossing of the Atlantic by far. I guess a strong tail wind with the storm. Saying speeds equivalent to over 800 mph Must be windy up there today - certainly windy down here. just found https://www.independent.co.uk/travel/storm-ciara-flight-record-new-york-london-time-atlantic-winds-british-airways-a9325396.html 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Richard E Posted February 9, 2020 Share Posted February 9, 2020 Recent wind speeds reported by some of the main UK airports - summarised by Flightradar24: East Midlands 39 kts, 54 kts gusts London Stansted 31 kts, 44 kts gusts London Gatwick 23 kts, 39 kts gusts London Heathrow 23 kts, 33 kts gusts London Luton 24 kts, 41 kts gusts Manchester 21 kts, 34 kts gusts Lots of pilots and air traffic controllers earning their salaries today ! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kushan_Farsight Posted February 9, 2020 Share Posted February 9, 2020 Would this technically have been supersonic at points then? i.e above Mach 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dnl42 Posted February 9, 2020 Share Posted February 9, 2020 Supersonic and transonic are defined with respect to the air it's travelling through. According to that article, which does indeed cite subsonic flight, the jet stream was 200 MPH. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scimitar F1 Posted February 9, 2020 Share Posted February 9, 2020 Jet stream has been strong this week. Flew back from NY on Wed in 6 hours 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
noelh Posted February 9, 2020 Share Posted February 9, 2020 7 hours ago, Kushan_Farsight said: Would this technically have been supersonic at points then? i.e above Mach 1 At no point. The maximum mach number a 747 can travel is something like mach .90. That's 90% of the local speed of sound The speed of sound varies with temperature. There's a formula to work it out, now long forgotten. The lower the temperature the lower the speed. So in theory the 747 crew might have maintained the highest mach number and descended to find the highest temperature while remaining in the jet stream. It's somewhat implied in the BA statement. Would have burned a lot of fuel though. Speed over the ground has nothing to do with speed though the air. That speed might be bettered again in the next few days. The wind is still very strong. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alan P Posted February 9, 2020 Share Posted February 9, 2020 That's impressive! My personal best groundspeed was 686kt in a 777-300ER doing M0.85 (it was hovering around 666kt at M0.84 but that didn't seem right so we tweaked it up a bit). The strongest jetstream I ever flew in was just shy of 200kt over eastern Asia but sadly it was a headwind 😫 G/S was 249kt and it took us 13 1/2 hours block time back from Shanghai. (Was also my biggest fuel load at 115t and we burned 110t. I have a lot of carbon offsetting to do...) 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ptmvarsityfan Posted February 9, 2020 Share Posted February 9, 2020 I seem to recall reading that the previous fastest subsonic transatlantic crossing was by a VC10, a shame if another British record is beaten! Cheers, Paul Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PhantomBigStu Posted February 9, 2020 Share Posted February 9, 2020 (edited) 24 minutes ago, ptmvarsityfan said: I seem to recall reading that the previous fastest subsonic transatlantic crossing was by a VC10, a shame if another British record is beaten! Cheers, Paul It wasn’t, previous record was a Norwegian 787-9, and before thar it was BA 777-200, probably a few others since the vc10 days Edited February 9, 2020 by PhantomBigStu 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohnT Posted February 10, 2020 Author Share Posted February 10, 2020 18 hours ago, Scimitar F1 said: Jet stream has been strong this week. Flew back from NY on Wed in 6 hours Bet you are glad you were not going the other way into wind ! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robin Posted February 10, 2020 Share Posted February 10, 2020 I flew back from JFK on one of the last Concorde flights into London. In his chat, beforehand, the Flight Engineer told us that this was his last ever flight on Concord and that would get the aircraft as high and as fast as possible, and so we were able to see the curvature of the Earth as we traveled at 1.425 mph at 60.000 ft and there wasn't a ripple on the champagne. In contrast, my Grandson is flying out to Montreal on Wednesday hoping that Ciara has eased off a little. Robin. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
noelh Posted February 10, 2020 Share Posted February 10, 2020 (edited) 8 hours ago, JohnT said: Bet you are glad you were not going the other way into wind Bet he is. Not like Alan P in his post above. 249kts 😒. Ouch! Having said that, particularly on the west bound transatlantic routes, tracks are chosen daily to minimise/maximise headwinds/tailwinds. That's why on some days the skies above you might be be full of contrails. Totally empty the next as the track is moved. Edited February 10, 2020 by noelh 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WV908 Posted February 10, 2020 Share Posted February 10, 2020 Record beaten by G-CIVP - It's nice that it was one of the more colourful birds - just a shame it wasn't the Landor or BOAC one though. The aircraft may be American built, but it's a British record once more. Cheers, WV908 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohnT Posted February 10, 2020 Author Share Posted February 10, 2020 2 hours ago, Robin said: I flew back from JFK on one of the last Concorde flights into London. In his chat, beforehand, the Flight Engineer told us that this was his last ever flight on Concord and that would get the aircraft as high and as fast as possible, and so we were able to see the curvature of the Earth as we traveled at 1.425 mph at 60.000 ft and there wasn't a ripple on the champagne. I recall a documentary on tv many years ago on Concorde and the guy being interviewed was talking about the early days. One lady passenger spoke to him after the display was showing over Mach 2 and said it’s a little disappointing that there was no bang or bump as they went through the sound barrier. It was entirely without any sensation or drama. He said his response was “Yes Madam. That was the difficult bit when designing her” 2 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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