A jet stream roaring across the North Atlantic at more than 200 miles per hour early Thursday morning nearly succeeded in bringing back supersonic air travel for the New York to London route. Several flights from New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport made the trip from there to London's Heathrow Airport (from gate to gate) in about five hours and 20 minutes.
British Airways Flight 114, a Boeing 777-200 jet, took off from JFK at 10:50 p.m. ET, and landed at 9:06 a.m. local time, taking just five hours 16 minutes to make a trip that typically takes more than six hours.
At one point, according to Flight Aware, the jet was traveling at a groundspeed, which is the speed at which the plane is traveling relative to ground level, of 745 miles per hour. For comparison, the speed of sound at sea level is 761 miles per hour.
In other words, the 777 helped British Airways live up to its legacy of operating the Concorde aircraft on that route until 2003.
(The actual airspeed of the 777 was considerably lower, though, and the plane was traveling within normal design limits, below the speed of sound at altitude, according to Flight Aware data.)
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Airlines actually don't like this too much. The quick flights sometimes get in before curfews, and the westbound flights on some planes can't make it against the wind and have to stop for gas in Bangor, Goose Bay, Gander, St. John's, etc.
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Totally random and don't know why I picked this thread, maybe the pilots might know I suppose.. but where are the massive amount of Ducks and Geese coming from each night. Notice tonnes, 100's, coming from the NE heading towards the river as the sun sets, the sky is just filled with long lines of them. Out of pure curiosity where in the NE(out of the city) do they go in the morning/afternoon to feed etc?
This is a decent place to ask - YYC Tower controllers are well aware of this movement of birds given their unpleasant effect on the propulsion system of airplanes, and I asked your very question on my visit there.
They are believed to be returning to the Inglewood Bird Sanctuary, just south of the Deerfoot/Blackfoot interchange, after heading north to various bodies of water as far as Buffalo Lake. That's about all I know.
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Great video of an emergency in real time today, a 777 departs Atlanta, has a problem and almost immediately starts dumping fuel. I knew immediately that it was fuel, but if you didn't know, it could look quite scary. Videographer gets a little excited - a bit of NSFW language.
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There's supposed to be required separations and altitudes, etc. for fuel dumps... but what happens in this video is exactly what we were taught would happen.
"Advise if you'd like to dump fuel?"
"Can we get such and such, and oh yeah, we're dumping already"
Just open up the valves and start dumping a ton of gas right over downtown Atlanta, and ask questions later.
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Clearly he was a lower tier Avgeek, not able to easily tell that was a fuel dump yet informed enough to use the call sign and acknowledge his vantage point for filming was backlit.
An SR-22 on a ferry flight from the USA to Australia had to ditch in the Pacific about 250nm from Kahului, Maui yesterday afternoon. The aircraft had an issue with the valve to the extra ferry fuel tanks, making reaching Maui impossible.
While being shadowed by a C130 the pilot pulled the Cirrus' aircraft parachute for a ditching in the ocean, this was after flying towards a cruise ship in the area that was notified of the situation also.
If you're picked up by a cruise ship, do you get early or late dinner seating? It would also suck that all the good spa and shore excursions would be booked.
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