Indeed...
Posted on 01/25/2025 4:59:08 PM PST by BenLurkin
Commercial flights bound for Europe have been taking off late from the States but arriving on time or early, thanks to a more powerful jet stream, strengthened by the arctic air mass that settled along the East Coast last week.
A Virgin Atlantic flight that left from JFK International Airport this week an hour and 13 minutes after its scheduled take-off time nevertheless arrived at London’s Heathrow Airport right when it was supposed to land, reports the Washington Post.
The planes didn’t break the sound barrier because it was the air moving them so quickly, not their engines. The report compared it to someone walking on a moving walkway at an airport – the person is moving faster because of the walkway, not because they’re walking faster.
Each winter, the jet stream intensifies. It also grows in strength at night, when the lower atmosphere starts to cool, which happens to be when many flights from the East Coast take off for overnight trips to Europe.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
Coming back from UK several years ago,air speed 500 plus mph,ground speed 95 mph.......took forever
Certainly the chairs in Cook Co. were more comfortable.
CC
Different altitudes have different winds.
Yeah, but heading back? I did a flight where my ground speed was in access of five hundred kts, on the return flight it was barely over four hundred ... this was flying first east then coming back west.
When this happened on Twilight Zone, they ended up back with the dinosaurs after traveling back in time.
I remember seeing an episode of this on The Twilight Zone. They end up traveling through time.
I was on a Delta 777 (I think it was) coming out of Narita heading for Portland, and we got in one MONSTER of a jet stream, and the “entertainment system moving map” thing said we were over 760 MPH. Had never had that happen before, or since.
Indeed...
The dang pterodactyls flying over and crapping on the windshield is a real nuisance.
You are correct. They can also fly at a higher or lower altitude. The core of the jet stream is about 4,000 feet thick. So changing altitude by that much (or more) up or down can minimize the headwind somewhat.
Caught a tail wind from LA to Chicago - Air speed was over 700 - got to Midway and our gate wasn’t ready - sat on the ground for 45 minutes waiting to deplane.
Are you suggesting coconuts migrate?
,,, many years ago I was on a SWISS A340-600 out of LAX to ZRH. The flight left around 7pm - difficult to calculate when the New Year actually clocked in. After dinner and Champagne the crew were about to serve coffee and cancelled that. There was severe turbulence. The plane was being pushed, for certain. It was the middle of the night and somewhere between Hudson Bay and Greenland I was wondering how long the rivets would hold out. I’m here to tell the story though. That was one of the roughest flights I’ve had. The worst of it ran for about two and a quarter hours.
Question?
If the jet stream is moving faster than the speed of sound, will the airplane experience the boom when breaking the sound barrier?
My gut tells me NO. They are moving with the air mass, not ground speed.
In 1971 flying from LA to Boston had a tailwind that kicked us up to over 700 mph. The pilot made an excited announcement about how this was the fastest he had ever flown, and we arrived about 90 minutes early.
I took the Concorde from London to DC and arrived before I left.
I once drove a car to Vegas before I knew where I was going to go.
Although the speed of sound is lower at high altitude, they mostly fly in the Mach .80-.86 range, depending on the aircraft....which means they are flying at 80%-86% of the speed of sound regardless of their groundspeed.
You have to exceed Mach 1 (actually about Mach 1.1 to get a sonic boom).
Who needs an underground tunnel? Just blast a wind-tunnel air route.
You are correct about the jet’s speed moving in the airmass. The only commercial jet than can exceed the speed of sound was the Concorde.
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