Okay, well while we are on the subject of headwinds/tailwinds, I too have noticed the longer flights. We had headwinds of 140 miles per hour going to SEAlast week which delayed us about 20 minutes.. this was just LAX-SEA.

A story I have regarding headwinds/tailwinds: I remember flying to NRT in January a couple years ago from LAX. It took 11 hours. Coming back, the tailwinds were between 190-200 mph and it took only 8-1/2 hours. Our airspeed read on the air show as much as 740 mph which was incredible. One man next to me said he had never flown that fast. The pilot said it was the fastest trip he had taken that year.

Is that the best you can do Matt? http://talk.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif How 'bout BOS-LAX 6.5 hours......

in coach!

During strange weather times, you'll see groups of transatlantic aircraft on the ground at Gander/Bangor/etc. going westbound to N. America b/c they couldn't make the fuel/payload/runway calculations work out economically, so they pick up fuel.

Many years ago I used to do the TW CPH-JFK run and had several Gander encounters in a row. The runway at CPH at the time was just too short for an economical payload w/ the necessary fuel load-out. So we stopped in Canada. The mixed blessing was that the E-bound flight was incredibly short - good b/c you're not cooped up so long, but it was too short to sleep much.

Plus, as others have noted elsewhere, if you have a really short E-bound flight, you may wind up circling the airport until customs opens up for the morning (hrrrumph, HEATHROW!)

Greg99
(a - not THE) Danville 1k
Greg

Hey...has everyone welcomed Greg to the board yet? Welcome Greg.

Greg,

You know....I never realized that about the transatlantics having to stop for fuel.....that is interesting stuff!

Dorian

Dorian:

That's just for you wimpy easterner types, crossing the Atlantic on toy planes like 767's. Real FFers travel across the Pacific on real planes -- 747's -- 14 hours at a time.

Fuel stop?! We don' need no steenkin' fuel stop!

Ken http://talk.flyertalk.com/forum/wink.gif

Ken,

Don't you worry....I do my fare share of long-hauls! 9 x FRA-YVR this year so far....all on 74's!

Dorian!

Kinda strange how I spelt fair in my last post! Subliminally implanted in my brain!

Dorian

Re: Ken's comments on not needing fuel stops when flying 747s: On our LAX - SYD flight earlier this year, we ended up stopping for gas in Nandi, Fiji, due to stonger than expected headwinds...

Yeah, but that's only 'cause once you cross the equator, the fuel drains out of the tank the wrong, Australian way, increasing fuel consupmtion.

Relax, it's a joke. You know, as I'm on another 6 days off, with pay. http://talk.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

Ken

Thanks very much for the welcomes! I can't believe it took me this long to find these boards (and then the appropriate few weeks to get a feel for them - this is a great group!)

The Copenhagen problem was in the days of the L1011 - I always liked the three engine compromise - don't get me started on transpac 777's.

I wonder whether part of their challenge was due to the bigger (D10/L10/747-100) aircraft having more belly room (I've been accused of that myself) so cargo was a bigger deal economically and caused them to offload less cargo back then than they do now - so they stop for fuel less often.

I'm sure it's for a different forum, but I once had a critical cargo package offloaded by UA from SFO to ZRH because it was displaced by asparagus for the annual Swiss spargl (sp?) festival - for 5 days no cargo had moved between the US and Switzerland unless it was green or white and went well with hollandaise sauce. Lost a big order because of that - I now have a psychosomatic allergy to asparagus.

Greg99

[This message has been edited by greg99 (edited 10-14-1999).]

Paging Rudi... http://talk.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

I think the Easterly winds have now gone back to more normal levels. I flew YVR-YYZ-YVR this weekend and flight times were normal (about 4h going and about 4h40m returning). Also there was no announcement about wind from the Captain, as they often make when the winds are much stronger.

[This message has been edited by megamiles (edited 10-18-1999).]

I must confess that I prefer white Cavaillon aspargus (to the green ones). http://talk.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

and UA will not create such cargo problems (to Switzerland) anmore - they gave up flying to Zurich in march-98 http://talk.flyertalk.com/forum/frown.gif.

KenHamer writes about trans-Pacific flights Well, actually Ken, we sometimes do. American Airlines started up service from San José to Tokyo a few years ago. Only problem was, the San José runway was too short for a fully loaded (and fueled) plane. So they pissed off lots of passengers by making an intermediate stop in...Oakland! The Silicon Valley passengers were annoyed that they could have slept an hour later by boarding in OAK (except that nobody was allowed on or off the plane); Oakland airport was thrilled to get an extra landing fee without having to provide any passenger services!


[This message has been edited by johna (edited 10-29-1999).]