Right now, the faster you fly the more fuel you burn. Last year, the longest non-stop flight in commercial aviation history took 19 hours from Singapore to Newark, New Jersey. At the same time, the aviation industry has never been more aware of the importance of reducing its carbon footprint, especially in light of recent climate change events. The challenge of flying faster, on less fuel, has spurred several projects researching the use of new composite materials and sustainable fuels in airline travel.
The research is set to solve the problem of fuel efficiency in super-fast aircraft. The British Aerospace , BAe for short, is a short-haul regional airliner. The BAe features a large airbrake with two petals at the rear of the fuselage below the tail rudder instead of thrust reversers. The advantage of the airbrake over thrust reversers is that they can be used during flight and allow for steep descents if needed. The BAe had a cruise speed of Mach 0. One of the notable features of this aircraft, and its engines, is that it had a very low level of operational noise.
This was because of the geared turbofan ALF — the gearbox allows the fan speed to stay below the speed of sound, which greatly reduces the noise emitted from the engines.
Having equipped four engines on the BAe meant that it had superior takeoff performance on short runways and in hot and high-altitude conditions. This aircraft was the second-ever short-haul jetliner to enter service, following the French Sud Aviation Caravelle. The One-Eleven was designed and built to replace the turboprop Vickers Viscount on short-haul routes, though it proved to be quite popular with domestic airlines and various international operators. It is one of the most successful British designed airliners.
The BAC had a cruise speed of Mach 0. Compared to its predecessor iterations of the One-Eleven, the Series was longer by 8ft 4in ahead of the wing and 5ft 2in behind the wing and Rolls Royce Spey turbofan engines. The aircraft also featured a modified cockpit that incorporated avionics systems and instrumentation which included a more sophisticated autoflight system.
Special VIP conversions of the aircraft layout were developed to be used as head-of-state transport by 14 countries. The ILM has a cruise speed of Mach 0. It also features simple, light single-slotted flaps and incremental aerodynamic improvements over its predecessor models.
Most notable of these improvements is the addition of spoilerons wing-mounted air brakes and the ability to use idle reverse thrust in flight to shorten the landing run required for the aircraft. First introduced in June , the fifth fastest passenger plane on our list is the long-range, wide-body, twin-engine Boeing It has a maximum capacity of passengers and completes long-haul flights with ease.
The Boeing has a cruise speed of Mach 0. A British Airways plane has broken the record for fastest subsonic flight—by going faster than the speed of sound. The flight from New York to London arrived almost two hours early after a flight lasting 4 hours and 56 minutes.
British Airways also just narrowly beat two Virgin Airways flights that took one minute and three minutes longer, respectively.
What happened? Well, the jet stream was much more powerful than usual, blowing more than miles per hour mph and carrying the planes at that high ambient speed. On Friday, the Washington Post predicted the wildly fast flights and shared a thorough analysis.
The Washington Post explains that storms closer to the north and south poles are larger and their force dissipates more quickly than storms at lower latitudes. By the end of the weekend, the storm coming from Greenland, called Storm Ciara in the affected U. The top speed of the Boeing itself is about mph, and this flight maxed out at mph. The best of these for this is likely FlightAware.
FlightAware only makes data available for around 2 weeks without an account, but if you're reading this before early July you can view the details for the flight I mentioned above including its track and speed plots.
That page shows the ground speed of the aircraft over time as:. If we jump over to Windy. Setting the time to that flight's time, and looking at the winds at 34, feet we can see that the winds were blowing in roughly the same direction as the plane was.
In other words, it had a tail-wind and thus on this occasion was able to reach a ground speed higher than the cruising speed. FlightAware doesn't report the actual air speed of the plane, but odds are it was around or below the normal stated cruise speed for the an A If all of that wasn't enough, there are multiple other criteria that can affect the actual speed the pilots fly at.
The most economical cruise speed actually varies with altitude, with aircraft weight, and with a number of other criteria - so it can actually vary even over a single flight as the altitude changes, and as the plane gets lighter due to fuel burn. Additionally, aircraft can be slowed down or sped up by factors such as air traffic control in order to maintain proper spacing, or to try and get a late-running plane back on schedule.
The reason we were able to travel so fast is down to what I mentioned above - the combination of ground speed what the GPS is measuring , airspeed what actually matters , and tailwind. In this case we were travelling above normal cruise speed due to a medical emergency on board that resulted in the pilots wanting to get to the destination as quickly as possible.
You can view the plane speed information on some flight trackers, e. More information here. Sign up to join this community. The best answers are voted up and rise to the top. Stack Overflow for Teams — Collaborate and share knowledge with a private group.
Create a free Team What is Teams? Learn more. How fast do the typical domestic travel jets , A family actually go? Ask Question. Asked 4 months ago. Active 4 months ago. Viewed 5k times. Improve this question. Lemuel Gulliver Lemuel Gulliver 5, 6 6 gold badges 30 30 silver badges 52 52 bronze badges. This might be a better fit for aviation.
Zeus: Wikipedia says this: "nm is a non-standard abbreviation used in many maritime applications and texts, including US Government Coast Pilots and Sailing Directions.
I am actually a virus, so I do move in nanometers per hour. Add a comment. Active Oldest Votes.
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