I don't have the photo that I took of the inflight map but I was on a NW 742 NRT-LAX. Flight took a southwesterly course out of NRT to catch the tailwinds which resulted in a ground speed of close to 1,200 km/h. Overall course was very southerly with the flight going about an hours flying time north of Hawaii.
Originally Posted by
wxguy
And then there's the opposite problem.... nearly eight hours BOS-SFO with a 150kt headwind. Yuck.
And sometimes unavoidable. Was in a similar situation on a NW DC-10 from HNL-NRT plodding along at what seemed to be a very leisurely pace. Connection time dwindled so much the NW ground team in NRT had to gather all the pax connecting to BKK in a van as there was only 1/2 hr connecting time left (and the plane parked remotely).