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". "The pilot will have sat their aircraft in the core of the jet stream and at this time of year it's quite strong. "Turbulence in those jet streams can be quite severe, but you can also find it can be a very smooth journey." The jet stream reached speeds of 260 mph (418 km/h) on Sunday morning, according to BBC Weather. Despite travelling faster than the speed of sound the plane would not have broken the sonic barrier as it was helped along by fast-moving air. Relative to the air, the plane was travelling slower than 801mph. Modern passenger planes usually travel at about 85% the speed of sound, according to Mr Rosenschein. British Airways said: "We always prioritise safety over speed records. "Our highly-trained pilots made the most of the conditions to get customers back to London well ahead of time." The fastest transatlantic crossing belongs to BA Concorde, which flew from New York to London in two hours 52 minutes and 59 seconds in 1996 - hitting a top speed of 1,350 mph. Storm helps plane beat transatlantic flight record
Thanks for repeating the BBC verbatim - did you have something to add? If it reminds me of anything it is of the famous RAF Hawker Hurricane flight between Scotland and the S East in the late 1930s when, thanks to a similar tail wind, speeds in excess of 400 mph were achieved. This put the wind up (no pun intended) Germany which resulted in the Me 209 research/race plane being reclassified so that they could claim to have a 400 mph plus standard fighter as well. No one in the British press of course mentioned that the fabric skin of the Hurricane's wings was so badly buckled that they had to be scrapped!
Bob I posted for the interest of the forum. What else would I add I can rely on you to come up with some old crock story "during the war without a source" on most posts so it compliments the thread. Regards Cut and Paste
That would be "Downwind Gillan" who in 1938 flew a 335 mph Hurricane Mark 1 down from Scotland at an average speed of 408 mph.He transferred to Bomber Command and as a W/C took over No 49 Squadron at Scampton in April 1940.Guy Gibson was serving on the other squadron based there,No 83 Squadron. Gibson did not think much of Gillan reading between the lines for he recorded in his Enemy Coast Ahead that Sissons who had taken over command of No 83 Squadron..a small, quiet man with a pleasant personality who did not say much whereas Gillan was a forcible personality and for sheer contrast,the two were as different as chalk and cheese.
Gillan's Hurricane Mark 1 was an early production model having fabric covered wings.In late 1939 a mod was introduced which replaced fabric with stressed skin metal covered wings.Aircraft already on the production track were so modded. The fuselage was retained as designed with a metal tubular construction covered in fabric.....this was retained in preference to the adoption of a fuselage design involving the more complicated stressed skin construction which would retard production output. Gillan must have been also satisfied with the the performance of the Merlin in addition to his tail wind.
All this time, Clive, I thought you were following the hints of the admins and other members to "cut n' paste" for no other reason that links sometimes disappear. My mistake.
In 1982, I flew from New York (JFK) to Heathrow on a BA Flight using a 747. Can't recall the flight length other than we arrived an hour earlier than expected. A little bumpy but not too bad.
What got me, was that a 'normal' (old, even) commercial airliner could withstand that sort of speed. Also wondered if they save fuel, or use more to retain position with tail-winds like that. I am not an aviationist. I do, however, think there's some right clever bastards that make these things in the first place.
Things have changed from the beginnings of the RFC before WW1 when an officer would walk onto the airfield and light a cigarette and if the smoke went straight up announce that it was safe to fly (I kid you not).
I am sure that the principles associated with "lift" was well understood as early as when the Wright brothers experimented...any wind...into the wind we go. Regarding the Boeing 747s they appear to have been relegated to cargo business...looked at the utilisation of aircraft recently as a snapshot and half the flights on a world wide basis were recorded as cargo. There seems to be a regular cargo service from Leipzig to Chicago with a Boeing 747, frequently flying over Lincolnshire as detected by Radar 24. Finningley still seem to have a few cargo movements from eastern Europe again using 747s. frequently seen at the cargo terminal.
The rumour that was circulating yesterday was that G-CIVB will be preserved at Kemble. British Airways Boeing 747 could be preserved at Cotswold Airport
