Virgin Atlantic Boeing 787-9 Hits 801 mph Ground Speed Due to Jet Stream

[PastTense]

A Virgin Atlantic flight making the grueling journey from Los Angeles to London yesterday hit a ground speed of at least 801 mph, thanks to a streak of fast-moving air in the jet stream over Pennsylvania.

https://jalopnik.com/a-commercial-fl...ile-1832733268

[patty50]

Very quick. Hope the pilots made it “official” although not a top 3 for a 789.

https://groundspeedrecords.com/

Looks like a few records beaten in the last week. E175 that did 668kt at .801.

[Jump Complete]

When I flew ATR’s one of my fellow First Officers proudly showed me a photo of a ground speed of 404 kts. In an ATR, THAT’s impressive! 😄

[JW411]

I once did LAX to LGW in a Laker DC-10-30 in 8 hours 49 minutes (take-off to landing).

[Onceapilot]

801MPH? Guess that is Statute miles hour, 695 Kts G/S. Wow! I saw over 700Kts G/S several times in my L1011 and, more excitingly, over 700KIAS at low level in a different triple-spool powered machine.

OAP

[admiral ackbar]

LAX-LHR is a grueling flight?

[bnt]

It is if you're in "cattle class". (I've done to and from Seattle, which was maybe an hour shorter.)

[Meester proach]

Good effort virgin guys/ girls.

I’m not surprised , there has been some strong jets around the last few days, and it’s been pretty bumpy all the way across.

[standbykid]

I flew YYZ to LGW in November around 7 years ago. The Captain mentioned he wanted to delay departure as due to the jet stream he; "didn't want to be sitting on the ground at Gatwick waiting for a gate." We took off fairly shortly as it happened and did the flight in just over 6 hours (take off to landing) which is the quickest I've ever done it in scores of flights over 40 years.

Not as quick as the OP, but very welcome.

[golfbananajam]

Originally Posted by PastTense

https://jalopnik.com/a-commercial-fl...ile-1832733268

At least? 0 to 801 mph in 0 seconds is some acceleration and then 801 to 0 is some braking performance

[Juggler25]

Had a Norwegian 789 a couple of weeks back asking for a direct as he was on track for beating the company record for JFK - LGW. He did it in 5 hours 11 minutes, breaking the record by 2 minutes. I've no idea what the actual record for this route is? Can't be far off (unless Concorde did it obviously).

[Bellerophon]

Juggler25

Concorde G-BOAD, 07 February 1996, JFK-LHR, 2h 52m 59s

[Winemaker]

At least? 0 to 801 mph in 0 seconds is some acceleration and then 801 to 0 is some braking performance

??? The article actually explained quite well what was going on. I didn't read anything about 0 to 801 mph, just a decent explanation for the lay public about winds aloft, flying in them, and ground speed.

[NWA SLF]

What ground speeds are found on flights over Japan. I remember in WWII the US Army Air Corps needed to switch from precision bombing to area fire bombing because wind speeds at B-29 bombing altitude sometimes exceeded 200 mph and the bombsights could not compensate for the variations of wind speed over the altitudes through which they fell. I remember my first trip from North America to Tokyo by the ground speed we making down the Kamchatka peninsula we were going to arrive a couple hours early. Then the ground speed started dropping, and dropping, and dropping, and I began to wonder if we were ever going to get there although Kamchatka is very scenic. I remembered war history and the wind problem - we arrived right on schedule. So flying from Tokyo to North America I thought 800 mph ground speeds would be quite common. After all flying toward Tokyo I remember reaching ground speeds lower than 350 mph on just a normal trip.

[Juggler25]

Originally Posted by Bellerophon

Juggler25

Concorde G-BOAD, 07 February 1996, JFK-LHR, 2h 52m 59s

Yeaaah I was talking about Gatwick. Well aware of Concorde into Heathrow! I'm taking about the sub sonic aircraft record for JFK - LGW as per the flight I was talking about.

[DaveReidUK]

Originally Posted by Juggler25

Had a Norwegian 789 a couple of weeks back asking for a direct as he was on track for beating the company record for JFK - LGW. He did it in 5 hours 11 minutes, breaking the record by 2 minutes. I've no idea what the actual record for this route is?

That time presumably is the record, given that the 15 January 2018 time of 5 hours 13 minutes was widely reported at the time as a record subsonic time.

[Lake1952]

Jet Stream Gives and Taketh AwZY

Multiple US westbound nonstop trans-cons were forced to pull up short with planned technical stops last week. These were flights using A320s, A321s and B738s. Flights from BOS, BDL, IAD, PHL etc used planned stops in DEN, STL, MCI, MSP, BOI, and even LAS to refuel.

[India Four Two]

Probably needs careful planning if you're going the other way!

It certainly did on my flight from Vancouver to Seoul on Tuesday. Our track was way north of the normal routing.




This is the second time I've flown trans-Pacific without "crossing the Pacific". Just like the first time, this was due to a major low in the Bering Sea, right in the middle of the GC track. I couldn't find the 500 mb chart, but here's the surface prog:



My flight was over central Alaska at the time, approaching Fairbanks.

As an aside, here's our track approaching ICN. Guess whose airspace we were avoiding!

[Octane]

Some newspapers are reporting the aircraft went supersonic...

[DaveReidUK]

Originally Posted by Octane

Some newspapers are reporting the aircraft went supersonic...

Shock News: mainstream media fails to understand simple physics.