A couple of planes got a big push from a jet stream with winds clocking 265 mph at cruising altitude this weekend, the National Weather Service said.

Strong high-altitude winds over the Mid-Atlantic sped up sky traffic on Saturday night, getting passengers on at least two commercial planes to their destinations early, after both aircraft hit supersonic speeds topping 800 mph.

Winds at cruising altitude peaked at about 265 mph, according to the Washington, D.C., area National Weather Service office — the second-highest wind speed logged in the region since recordings began in 1948. The highest-ever wind speed recorded in the area at a similar altitude was 267 mph on Dec. 6, 2002.

“For those flying eastbound in this jet, there will be quite a tail wind,” the NWS warned in a tweet.

Sure enough, that tailwind helped cut down the flight time for passengers on a Virgin Atlantic flight from D.C. to London by 45 minutes, according to the tracker FlightAware.

  • @Everythingispenguins
    10•10 months ago

    So you are right they were not going supersonic speeds, not even close. Yes their ground speed exceeded the speed of sound, but ground speed is only meaningful with how fast the plane is going to get to its destination. The plane only cares about air speed.

    So it is all about the frame of reference. For a plane in flight the air is in a different frame of reference than the ground. To be supersonic the plane needs to be moving supersonic speeds in relation to the air not the ground.

    Also just to make life more fun supersonic is not a transition that happens at a set speed. It is actually pressure dependent. At standard pressure and temperature it is 786mph, but it will go up and down with changes to pressure and temperature.

    The true definition of supersonic is when the air the plane is pushing is no longer able to flow around the plane and instead is compressed in front of it. But that definition is hard to put on an air speed indicator so they just use 786mph better known as Mach 1.0.

    Thanks for coming to my TED talk.

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