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It's an ill wind ... (Jet Stream helps set new transatlantic flight record)

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DaleCooper

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825mph in a 747!

Storm Ciara helps plane beat transatlantic flight record

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-51433720
Experts are hailing a British Airways flight as the fastest subsonic New York to London journey.

The Boeing 747-436 reached speeds of 825 mph (1,327 km/h) as it rode a jet stream accelerated by Storm Ciara.

The four hours and 56 minutes flight arrived at Heathrow Airport 80 minutes ahead of schedule on Sunday morning.

According to Flightradar24, an online flight tracking service, it beat a previous five hours 13 minutes record held by Norwegian.

The BBC has been unable to independently verify the record as no complete database of flight times was available.

Aviation consultant and former BA pilot Alastair Rosenschein said the aeroplane reached a "phenomenal speed".
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najaB

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GRALISTAIR said:
Unbelievable especially as it is a very heavy plane - the mighty queen of the skies Boeing 747
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The mass really doesn't make a difference. The plane was flying at its normal speed, it just so happened that the air around it was also moving in the same direction.

Some westbound flights have been cancelled because the flight times would have been extended by just as much - so a 8 hour flight might end up being closer to 12.
 
87 027

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A very good example of the difference between "groundspeed" and "airspeed", which I never fully understood until recently
 
306024

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GRALISTAIR said:
Unbelievable especially as it is a very heavy plane - the mighty queen of the skies Boeing 747
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“The queen of the skies” is exactly how my BA pilot welcomed us on a 747 last month.
Looking at some other footage of planes landing today I’d rather be on the ground though.
 
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DynamicSpirit

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najaB said:
Some westbound flights have been cancelled because the flight times would have been extended by just as much - so a 8 hour flight might end up being closer to 12.
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Would they? I thought that they took different routes heading East and West so they could match up with the airflows that tended to help, rather than hinder, their ground speed.

(Or perhaps today there weren't any good routes that didn't have ultra-strong winds from the West?)
 
najaB

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DynamicSpirit said:
Would they? I thought that they took different routes heading East and West so they could match up with the airflows that tended to help, rather than hinder, their ground speed.

(Or perhaps today there weren't any good routes that didn't have ultra-strong winds from the West?)
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They would have had to go a *long* way out of the normal routes. It would have added at least a couple hours to the flight times. And that's after fighting the winds to get out of UK airspace.
 
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I thought it was a 767 that did that quick flight, I am sure that's what the radio news said, then I heard that it was a 747. As mentioned above however, a great aircraft. I thought though that BA has stopped flying them, nice to hear that they are still around. Out of interest, I wonder how many they have in their fleet.? I wonder what the landing was like though, I am only 5 miles from Heathrow and it was very windy here at times yesterday. I did also hear from a friend that is interested in aviation, that one A380, tried to land at Heathrow, changed it's mind and went for Gatwick, didn't like that so attempted Stansted which was iffy too and ended up at Amsterdam.!
 
najaB

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STEVIEBOY1 said:
I thought though that BA has stopped flying them, nice to hear that they are still around. Out of interest, I wonder how many they have in their fleet.?
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I think they've still got around 30. They aren't leaving the fleet until 2025 or thereabouts - I haven't kept up with the plans as they have changed a few times.
 
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najaB said:
I think they've still got around 30. They aren't leaving the fleet until 2025 or thereabouts - I haven't kept up with the plans as they have changed a few times.
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32 to be precise, with the last one expected to leave service in 2024 and replaced by the new 777-9x, assuming of course Boeing don't run into any more issues.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Airways#Fleet
 
najaB

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Bantamzen said:
...replaced by the new 777-9x, assuming of course Boeing don't run into any more issues.
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They already have. First flight was delayed by several months, and apparently they have run into some software issues similar to the 737-Max 8. EIS was supposed to have been last year, now it's looking like 2021.
 
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Bantamzen

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najaB said:
They already have. First flight was delayed by several months, and apparently they have run into some software issues similar to the 737-Max 8. EIS was supposed to have been last year, now it's looking like 2021.
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That's true, I'd totally forgotten about that even though I did watch the live stream of it's first test flight! Doh! :oops:
 
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STEVIEBOY1

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najaB said:
I think they've still got around 30. They aren't leaving the fleet until 2025 or thereabouts - I haven't kept up with the plans as they have changed a few times.
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Oh right, good to know that. Thanks. :)
 
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