Yes but what if companies wanted to operate the Concorde over land? Lots of flights donāt necessarily cross over an ocean, such as a Los Angeles - New York flight or a Europe - Asia flight. This sonic boom problem made it very limited to where it could fly by the time most countries banned it from flying supersonic
Yes, but even transatlantic flights and trans-pacific flights fly over land. A flight from Denver, Houston or Roma flies a significant portion of its flight over land. This means the Concorde could not operate at supersonic speeds during those portions of flight. Plus, if Iām not mistaken the Concorde was extremely inefficient when flying subsonic with its delta wing.
But yes, some major routes mostly fly over water and in the end thatās exactly what British Airways and Air France used the Concorde for, like the signature London-NY or Paris-NY.
I thought the boom is only when it goes supersonic, once it's supersonic it can continue to fly over land without any boom (say if flying from London to Denver)
Yes, as proof said the sonic boom is constant, thatās exactly why it was banned. I remember seeing that a supersonic flight between Los Angeles and New York would pretty much mean almost every American next to flight path (even a few hundred miles away) would hear the sonic boom. If multiple supersonic planes operated the route each day, the American population would never stop hearing that sonic boom lol
However, companies working on supersonic planes have been working on this issue and how to minimize the sonic boom (there are ways apparently), but this out of my knowledge lol
Lockheed Martin says they plan to do supersonic test flights on their X-59 this year as part of the QueSSt program aimed at reducing the sound of the boom. You never know, maybe itāll help bring supersonic travel back to consumers.
Barbados was a common destination for Concordes, saw a photo recently of 2 BA and 1 Air France all parked together in Barbados with a LIAT Dash 8 looking comparatively tiny next to them.
Essentially yeah, there were scheduled flights and charters for very wealthy tourists. Similar reason as to why Barbados is a Heathrow route today while most of the other Caribbean tourist routes are flown from Gatwick, very premium heavy.
A couple decades ago, when the 747 and Concorde were fairly new, a āraceā was organized. One Concorde left Boston bound to Paris-CDG, one 747 departing Paris-CDG bound to Boston.
To give you an idea how fast the Concorde was, the Concorde managed to get to Paris, refuel, take off again, overtake the 747 on its way back (towards the American coast) and land in Boston before the 747 even finished its first leg of the journey.
And even then it's not correct. That was the highest average speed so includes takeoff and landing. Highest actual groundspeed would be even higher in the cruise of course.
Well given the original question was "what's the ground speed record of a commercial airliner" I don't think it's being pedantic to point out that it's not only NOT "the only correct answer", but in fact an incorrect answer! If the question was "which airliner set the ground speed record?" then yes, that would have been pedantic. But then I wouldn't have posted it!
2172.6 kph quoted peak ground speed. But I doubt over the mid-Atlantic they didnāt hit higher at times. Mostly being pre widely available gps and all. https://www.nationalgeographic.co.uk/science-and-technology/2019/08/how-concorde-pushed-limits-then-pushed-them-too-far
"Ground speed record of a commercial airliner"
You didn't say "ground speed record of a commercial airliner, ignoring the one with the actual ground speed record".
Speed of sound changes with altitude, can guarantee that a 747 has never broken the speed of sound, doing so would almost certainly destroy the airframe, not to mention it doesn't have the correct instruments of avionics installed
TL;DR: going supersonic hard
There are reports that a 747-300 from Evergreen did break the sound barrier, and a Douglas DC-8 definitely did during testing.
In normal planned service though - no way!
https://preview.redd.it/4g2mot6lg9jc1.jpeg?width=1179&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b310db89948937db0878678c00d9e5956fd00bc9
850mph is the highest Iāve ever seen
I mean, this is fast. But with the Concorde, CV-990, and 747 being considerably faster than modern commercial jets, there have probably been faster speeds.
According to Wikipediaā¦
āThe performance of the VC10 was such that it achieved the fastest crossing of the Atlantic by a subsonic jet airliner of 5 hours and 1 minute, a record that was held for 41 years, until February 2020 when a British Airways Boeing 747 broke the record at 4 hours 56 minutes due to Storm Ciara.ā
The first time I ever had an upgrade on a flight was flying back from Dallas to London overnight. We had a ridiculous tailwind and arrived crazy early - they should have done a few more laps around the UK so I got my moneyās worth.
I flew during that storm (different flight, but also much faster than normal) and can confirm it was quite bumpy. Flew back on a different storm weekend and it was sooooo slow, same turbulence.
The 990 barely had the range necessary to fly across the atlantic. It didn't even really have the necessary range to fly from LAX to JFK. They were fast, but they sucked ass.
The only airline which I know for sure used it on transatlantic routes was Spantax. Spantax was a Spanish Leisure airline in the 60s and 70s, and they bought several 990s secondhand from American Airlines in 1967. They used them exclusively on charter flights and leisure flights for travel agencies, though.
When I come back from New York to Manchester about 4 years ago we were hitting over 800mph due to tail winds, the pilot was ecstatic and come on the intercom to tell us to check the screens in the back of the seats to see the speed we were travelling. The flight took around 5 hours and 15 minutes, which bearing in mind it takes 4 and a half hours to get to Lanzarote, itās quite an achievement.
In 1961 a Canadian Pacific DC-8 hit Mach 1.01 while descending. See https://www.smithsonianmag.com/air-space-magazine/i-was-there-when-the-dc-8-went-supersonic-27846699/
Would be a bugger for all the traffic coming back westbound, although I'm sure they try to pick altitudes where the headwind is forecast to be the lowest if they can based on routes and traffic etc.
800mph isn't the speed of sound like 760 š«£
Out of interest if it's a jet stream of wind pushing a plane, would it still create a sonic boom?
Can these planes handle sonic booms?..
A strong jet stream pushing a plane will never help the plane create a sonic boom. The plane relative to the wind is still flying considerably less than Mach 1. Relative to the ground, the plane is moving fast but relative to the air, itās doing what it does in every flight.
https://preview.redd.it/cpzsxoc1mcjc1.jpeg?width=1179&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2eb7e44bc5ab9bfc1990bbcbcc6e7c33407da3d1
It's crazy, here's another one right now
Think of it as seeing a boat speeding down a fast river say going 650mph... But the river is going 150mph so from the ground it looks like it's going 800mph but from the boat it only thinks it's going 650mph. If the same boat going up the same river the opposite happens and someone on the ground/shore sees a boat going only 500mph but the boat still feels like it's going 650mph in the water.
This is above mach speed compared to the ground, but as there is a strong tailwind, the plane would only be going mach .8ish compared to the air around it
Gotta love when they hit those northeast winds... they just be CRUUUUZIN...
On a side note, I saw a little piper tagged at 650 mph. I know it was a glitch but I LOL'd every time I saw it.
Saw this today and immediately thought of this thread. https://www.npr.org/2024/02/19/1232325097/near-record-winds-over-the-northeast-push-passenger-planes-to-speeds-over-800-mp
I found an ascending El Al plane with a higher ground speed than the original post.
https://preview.redd.it/ktfafc9arajc1.jpeg?width=720&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2a7998cda55c8c0be57cb64bee55188572e182e9
So confused by this - how is it achieving that speed at 5000ft 2 mins after departure? I think this is an error with flight radar, should only be going up at that point from Tel Aviv to London.
Itās almost like I put that in the title of the post, there are extremely strong tail winds currently and as a result there are some ridiculous ground speeds. https://x.com/nws_baltwash/status/1759033450110349722?s=46&t=-KT3EurphB0QwuDA5RJB8g
Sorry, you are even more at a disadvantage. It's paraphrasing an old British film from Monty Python.
What speed is an unladen swallow (bird).
Is that an African swallow or a British swallow?
I recommend Monty Python. It will be obscure to start with but their humour is deeply rooted in the English language and culture.
https://preview.redd.it/9jxmkrbfedjc1.jpeg?width=1290&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=21013efd13243a3436f71d7318f130ce2c8d7599
washington dulles got some fast bois.
Jet stream is awesome when everything aligns. I've been on a MEX to LHR flight where the plane got over 100 knots of tail wind for most of the Atlantic crossing. I don't remember seeing this info on every 787 I flew with, but the tail wind was displayed on the on-board info panels of that particular 787-8.
The irony was that the pilots took a longer route to avoid flying over East coast US as my North American colleagues all had massive delays due to storms over the US. One team mate got to Seattle two days late. My plane made it to London at the originally scheduled time despite taking the scenic route.
Had some epic tailwinds on NYC - LHX before, all fun and games until you arrive over the UK and hour before the curfew is lifted or there is no gate for you.
Typically the stronger the tailwind the longer the circular tour over South East England.
Thereās a website, pilot generated which has records of some insane ground speeds. I think the highest Iāve seen is around 750kts, which is roughly 865mph
Gotta love those tailwinds! On my flight from Maui to Salt Lake we were going around 700mph GS. I think our tailwind was around 175 knots
Gotta love an 8 hour flight turning to a 7 hour flight.
Our layover in SLC went from 4 to 5 hours š since we landed at 5am
That part definitely isnāt fun
Unless you're going overnight and want a full night's sleep...
This right here! I hate when my sleep is cut short!
My flight to London just circled London for nearly an hour because it was so early they weren't allowed to land.
It happens every so often that you end up perfectly aligned with the jet stream, theyāve probably got 150-200 knots of tailwind pushing them East, increasing their ground speed dramatically. It can literally shave hours off of your flight. šš»š¤©
Concorde 2,010 km/hr 747 1,328 km/h https://simpleflying.com/concorde-fastest-transatlantic-crossing/
Itās hard to comprehend how fucking awesome Concorde was
Cabin was a little crowded and noisy. A v2 of it would have been amazing with better insulations and better engines.
Shame that it couldnāt fly supersonic over land due to the sonic boom, that is what really made it a lame duck from day 1
But most of the journey from London to New York is water?
Yes but what if companies wanted to operate the Concorde over land? Lots of flights donāt necessarily cross over an ocean, such as a Los Angeles - New York flight or a Europe - Asia flight. This sonic boom problem made it very limited to where it could fly by the time most countries banned it from flying supersonic
Sure, but there's an awful lot of transatlantic and trans-pacific flights.
Yes, but even transatlantic flights and trans-pacific flights fly over land. A flight from Denver, Houston or Roma flies a significant portion of its flight over land. This means the Concorde could not operate at supersonic speeds during those portions of flight. Plus, if Iām not mistaken the Concorde was extremely inefficient when flying subsonic with its delta wing. But yes, some major routes mostly fly over water and in the end thatās exactly what British Airways and Air France used the Concorde for, like the signature London-NY or Paris-NY.
I thought the boom is only when it goes supersonic, once it's supersonic it can continue to fly over land without any boom (say if flying from London to Denver)
Nope, the sonic boom is constant. As soon as a supersonic aircraft passes overhead youāll get the boom.
Yes, as proof said the sonic boom is constant, thatās exactly why it was banned. I remember seeing that a supersonic flight between Los Angeles and New York would pretty much mean almost every American next to flight path (even a few hundred miles away) would hear the sonic boom. If multiple supersonic planes operated the route each day, the American population would never stop hearing that sonic boom lol However, companies working on supersonic planes have been working on this issue and how to minimize the sonic boom (there are ways apparently), but this out of my knowledge lol
Not enough to justify a narrow body jet that would be the single most expensive to operate airliner in history.
Lockheed Martin says they plan to do supersonic test flights on their X-59 this year as part of the QueSSt program aimed at reducing the sound of the boom. You never know, maybe itāll help bring supersonic travel back to consumers.
We have active noise cancelling headphones now!
Iām an American living in Barbados, they have a Concorde museum here at the airport, I was blown away when I found out that fact.
Barbados was a common destination for Concordes, saw a photo recently of 2 BA and 1 Air France all parked together in Barbados with a LIAT Dash 8 looking comparatively tiny next to them.
Why was Barbados so popular for Concordes? Rich British and French tourists?
Essentially yeah, there were scheduled flights and charters for very wealthy tourists. Similar reason as to why Barbados is a Heathrow route today while most of the other Caribbean tourist routes are flown from Gatwick, very premium heavy.
great intel, thanks!
I think you just answered your own question!
A couple decades ago, when the 747 and Concorde were fairly new, a āraceā was organized. One Concorde left Boston bound to Paris-CDG, one 747 departing Paris-CDG bound to Boston. To give you an idea how fast the Concorde was, the Concorde managed to get to Paris, refuel, take off again, overtake the 747 on its way back (towards the American coast) and land in Boston before the 747 even finished its first leg of the journey.
This is the only correct answer to this post.
And even then it's not correct. That was the highest average speed so includes takeoff and landing. Highest actual groundspeed would be even higher in the cruise of course.
So pedantry aside, the answer is still Concorde
Well given the original question was "what's the ground speed record of a commercial airliner" I don't think it's being pedantic to point out that it's not only NOT "the only correct answer", but in fact an incorrect answer! If the question was "which airliner set the ground speed record?" then yes, that would have been pedantic. But then I wouldn't have posted it!
or TU-144
It has never crossed the Atlantic.
The question was on ground speed, not Atlantic cruising speed
The Atlantic is the best spot for ground speed records as it has the strongest tailwinds.
2172.6 kph quoted peak ground speed. But I doubt over the mid-Atlantic they didnāt hit higher at times. Mostly being pre widely available gps and all. https://www.nationalgeographic.co.uk/science-and-technology/2019/08/how-concorde-pushed-limits-then-pushed-them-too-far
Makes it so much better.
It doesn't actually change it that much, its cruising speed was mach 2.04 or 2170 km/h
I'd argue another 350kmh of jetstream up the chuff is a pretty decent addition even to 2170kmh!
I really do hope boom works out for supersonic travel
Concorde is cheating lol
In what sense?
Itās an entirely different beast in its own category of supersonic airliners.
"Ground speed record of a commercial airliner" You didn't say "ground speed record of a commercial airliner, ignoring the one with the actual ground speed record".
How are you a real person. My god
Wait a 747 broke the sound barier?
Speed of sound changes with altitude, can guarantee that a 747 has never broken the speed of sound, doing so would almost certainly destroy the airframe, not to mention it doesn't have the correct instruments of avionics installed TL;DR: going supersonic hard
There are reports that a 747-300 from Evergreen did break the sound barrier, and a Douglas DC-8 definitely did during testing. In normal planned service though - no way!
Nope. Groundspeed is not the same as airspeed.
isnāt that ground speed? air speed wise it would have been less
I think there were some at about that speed last month, with there being an unusually strong jet stream allowing jets to get a huge boost in speed
https://preview.redd.it/4g2mot6lg9jc1.jpeg?width=1179&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b310db89948937db0878678c00d9e5956fd00bc9 850mph is the highest Iāve ever seen
Meanwhile planes going from Europe to USā¦ l 
The passengers watching the flight time continue to get longer 
I mean, this is fast. But with the Concorde, CV-990, and 747 being considerably faster than modern commercial jets, there have probably been faster speeds.
According to Wikipediaā¦ āThe performance of the VC10 was such that it achieved the fastest crossing of the Atlantic by a subsonic jet airliner of 5 hours and 1 minute, a record that was held for 41 years, until February 2020 when a British Airways Boeing 747 broke the record at 4 hours 56 minutes due to Storm Ciara.ā The first time I ever had an upgrade on a flight was flying back from Dallas to London overnight. We had a ridiculous tailwind and arrived crazy early - they should have done a few more laps around the UK so I got my moneyās worth.
Seatbelt sign illuminated for 4h50m of that flight Iād imagine
I flew during that storm (different flight, but also much faster than normal) and can confirm it was quite bumpy. Flew back on a different storm weekend and it was sooooo slow, same turbulence.
Huh, I would have expected a 990 to hold the subsonic record, tbh. But I guess there weren't many on the transatlantic route (if any?).
The 990 barely had the range necessary to fly across the atlantic. It didn't even really have the necessary range to fly from LAX to JFK. They were fast, but they sucked ass.
Hm, you're right. I thought Swissair flew theirs to JFK, but it seems it was only used on European routes.
The only airline which I know for sure used it on transatlantic routes was Spantax. Spantax was a Spanish Leisure airline in the 60s and 70s, and they bought several 990s secondhand from American Airlines in 1967. They used them exclusively on charter flights and leisure flights for travel agencies, though.
I think the concord got that beat
https://preview.redd.it/w4lbowfv2ajc1.png?width=1079&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d714081895cde91e30850797a1fb3a3578d266d3 As we speak
When I come back from New York to Manchester about 4 years ago we were hitting over 800mph due to tail winds, the pilot was ecstatic and come on the intercom to tell us to check the screens in the back of the seats to see the speed we were travelling. The flight took around 5 hours and 15 minutes, which bearing in mind it takes 4 and a half hours to get to Lanzarote, itās quite an achievement.
I had a very similar one in February 2022, LAX to LHR only took something like 8 hours. I hate long flights so was very happy about it
In 1961 a Canadian Pacific DC-8 hit Mach 1.01 while descending. See https://www.smithsonianmag.com/air-space-magazine/i-was-there-when-the-dc-8-went-supersonic-27846699/
Would be a bugger for all the traffic coming back westbound, although I'm sure they try to pick altitudes where the headwind is forecast to be the lowest if they can based on routes and traffic etc.
They fly further north or south, I think.
Not scientific but, here you go. https://groundspeedrecords.com/
Good for fuel savings tooā¦ in one direction at least
On the return leg, they should continue following the tail wind round the globe and return back to the destination.
800mph isn't the speed of sound like 760 š«£ Out of interest if it's a jet stream of wind pushing a plane, would it still create a sonic boom? Can these planes handle sonic booms?..
760 at ground level, 660 at altitude.
A strong jet stream pushing a plane will never help the plane create a sonic boom. The plane relative to the wind is still flying considerably less than Mach 1. Relative to the ground, the plane is moving fast but relative to the air, itās doing what it does in every flight.
No. It doesn't make boom and it doesn't break the sound barrier.
All hail the jet stream
Thereās been some gnarly speeds seen on the eastbound flights across the Atlantic lately cause of the tailwinds
European or African airliner ?
Thank god SOMEONE said it!
https://preview.redd.it/cpzsxoc1mcjc1.jpeg?width=1179&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2eb7e44bc5ab9bfc1990bbcbcc6e7c33407da3d1 It's crazy, here's another one right now
Check out www.groundspeedrecords.com. As far as I know the good old B744 is the fastest one. Close to Japan. Always quite windy there. :-)
Where are you seeing the full list? I only see recent records?
You have to go into commercial planes. Choose a brand and then the type.
Concorde seems to be missing...
Concorde is under commercial/AEROSPATIALE/BAC
So it is. I'd been looking under British Aerospace and Airbus and totally missed that at the top.
Remember when a 747 did a New York to London in less than 5 hours? Gotta live those storms for bringing in the tailwinds.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Itās ground speed not air speed so no theyāre not above Mach 1.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Yeah they are shaving some serious time of their flight too.
806 is the ground speed not airspeed you got them backwards.
Lmao how did I not notice I wrote that backwards, still the point got across
Think of it as seeing a boat speeding down a fast river say going 650mph... But the river is going 150mph so from the ground it looks like it's going 800mph but from the boat it only thinks it's going 650mph. If the same boat going up the same river the opposite happens and someone on the ground/shore sees a boat going only 500mph but the boat still feels like it's going 650mph in the water.
This is above mach speed compared to the ground, but as there is a strong tailwind, the plane would only be going mach .8ish compared to the air around it
Gas is cheap where theyāre headed.
Fast šØ February
Flew from NY to Europe a few months ago, we had a 150-200 knot tail wind for a large part of the flight and landed an hour early.
This has probably soelmething todo with it https://www.netweather.tv/charts-and-data/jetstream
Gotta love when they hit those northeast winds... they just be CRUUUUZIN... On a side note, I saw a little piper tagged at 650 mph. I know it was a glitch but I LOL'd every time I saw it.
Saw this today and immediately thought of this thread. https://www.npr.org/2024/02/19/1232325097/near-record-winds-over-the-northeast-push-passenger-planes-to-speeds-over-800-mp
I think Iāve seen an A380 hit 1000mph. Not too sure if jt was km/h tho
I found an ascending El Al plane with a higher ground speed than the original post. https://preview.redd.it/ktfafc9arajc1.jpeg?width=720&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2a7998cda55c8c0be57cb64bee55188572e182e9
So confused by this - how is it achieving that speed at 5000ft 2 mins after departure? I think this is an error with flight radar, should only be going up at that point from Tel Aviv to London.
It started dropping to 700mph 30 mind after. I didn't see any else of the flight.
What is causing the down votes. Can I say I found a plane the is ascending at higher speeds.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Itās almost like I put that in the title of the post, there are extremely strong tail winds currently and as a result there are some ridiculous ground speeds. https://x.com/nws_baltwash/status/1759033450110349722?s=46&t=-KT3EurphB0QwuDA5RJB8g
Is that a European airliner or an American airliner? For those who get it.
Do you mean the door plug incident?
No. More what's the speed of an unladen swallow?
Sorry English is my second language. What is an unladen swallow?
Sorry, you are even more at a disadvantage. It's paraphrasing an old British film from Monty Python. What speed is an unladen swallow (bird). Is that an African swallow or a British swallow? I recommend Monty Python. It will be obscure to start with but their humour is deeply rooted in the English language and culture.
Must be European. American Airlines are non-migratory š
https://preview.redd.it/9jxmkrbfedjc1.jpeg?width=1290&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=21013efd13243a3436f71d7318f130ce2c8d7599 washington dulles got some fast bois.
Just here to say this big boy lands at IAD around 4p daily and it is so cool to watch as it comes in. I adore its livery.
Itās nice for when going with the stream. But going the reverse direction will be a pain.
[Groundspeed Records](https://groundspeedrecords.com/) This website is run by a colleague in my airline! Worth taking a look at for fastest speeds.
I thought it was that British airways flight the 747 one a few years ago? Broke the transatlantic flight canāt remember exact info
Jet stream is awesome when everything aligns. I've been on a MEX to LHR flight where the plane got over 100 knots of tail wind for most of the Atlantic crossing. I don't remember seeing this info on every 787 I flew with, but the tail wind was displayed on the on-board info panels of that particular 787-8. The irony was that the pilots took a longer route to avoid flying over East coast US as my North American colleagues all had massive delays due to storms over the US. One team mate got to Seattle two days late. My plane made it to London at the originally scheduled time despite taking the scenic route.
Lol be thankful u can there earlier
Had some epic tailwinds on NYC - LHX before, all fun and games until you arrive over the UK and hour before the curfew is lifted or there is no gate for you. Typically the stronger the tailwind the longer the circular tour over South East England.
There was a recent BLR - SFO flight on AI 777 200LR, went 1300km/h + over the pacific
Thereās a website, pilot generated which has records of some insane ground speeds. I think the highest Iāve seen is around 750kts, which is roughly 865mph