A few years ago, I was flying NW NRT-HNL. The 742 reached an airspeed of 1,200 km/h+ (750 mph) ground speed. NW seems to liek to use this route as a NRT-LAX flight I took early this year passed just north of Hawaii - very southerly and way off the great circle.
Originally Posted by PhilH
If you were flying the other way, you'd be going at 480mph ground speed, only 2/3 as fast, so the journey would take 50% longer!!!
(Above figures are illustrative only, not sure they'd be as strong a wind in the real world?)
Well, I flew a NW DC-10 HNL-NRT. The a/c's ground speed crawled to sub 500 mph (as slow as 400 mph) about 2-3 hrs out of NRT. Not sure if this was due to very strong headwinds or ATC (no head/tail wind speed indicators). At any rate, even if the block time was padded, the flight left punctually and arrived 1/2 hr late.
Is it possible BA pilots sit in the strongest tailwinds to get best possible fuel saving?
They will certainly try to use it to fly a 3-engined 744 from LAX to LHR!