Virgin Atlantic flight reaches 801 mph!
According to the Washington Post, a Virgin Atlantic flight from LAX to LHR got caught up in a hugeee jetstream at around 35,000ft, causing the aircraft to go over 800 miles an hour!
That is a crazy fast speed, and it proves how powerful the jetstreams can be.
This speed is now claimed to be a new record speed for the 787-9.
That’s above Mach 1! Amazing Mother Nature!
Mach 1 is around 775 I think.
How long have I been telling you guys to fly over Pittsburgh? 😂
@Gabe_Z and @JeromeJ, that’s showing ground speed, so it might have been close but the pilots would have slowed it down if it was going above .85 or something like that…
I had to stand in my backyard for hours to blow that up, afternoon well spent… 👌🏼
I just flew over Pittsburgh going the other way on my way to LA, our flight was scheduled for 5 hours.
It was 6 1/2.
So how much did it cut the time to its destination?
Well you got to tell me so I can be out in the back yard huffing and puffing…
I saw 48 minutes early into Heathrow.
Here’s the flight on flightaware -
Well it was actually Mach 0.84…
Yeah the winds over the Atlantic and Northeast are over 210 knots.
Would the eccesive speed put strain on the airframe?
The plane was traveling at 800 knots across the ground, but the resistance in the air was not, it was more around 500ish knots in the air.
If you ever want to see the difference, simply climb up in infinite flight and check your ground speed to air speed at around 30,000 feet. Depending on the aircraft you could have anywhere from a 100 to even a 1000 knot split.
More likely about 270/280kts indicated which relates to dynamic pressure (Q). A TAS of about 480/490kts which is unrelated to dynamic pressure.
So no different to any other flight in terms of airspeed, dynamic pressure and airframe “strain”.
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