Saturday, November 22, 2008

GOING FAST.......REAL FAST


Every now and then when I'm flying a trip, we get a wonderful thing called a "tailwind". Usually it's nothing more than high level winds pushing us along... and sometimes they push us really fast. I flew from Cancun, Mexico, to Newark, NJ, a couple of months ago in 2 hours and 50 minutes. It takes almost that long to fly from Fort Lauderdale to Newark (2+30)!!! We had some incredible tailwinds helping us along our way up to Newark. Here's a shot of one of our instruments displaying a ground speed of 645 knots (645 x1.1516 ='s miles per hour) which means we were actually flying at 743 miles per hour!!! That's moving my friends!!!! We were covering a mile every 4.85 seconds! My record is 670 knots (772 mph) which I've only seen once.....and even the air traffic controllers couldn't believe we were flying that fast. I think our tailwind was around 300 miles per hour or so that day, and we covered our route from Indianapolis, IN, to Newark, NJ, in just an hour. The only problem with tailwinds that strong is that it takes forever to get where you're going due to the HEADWINDS getting there!

2 comments:

The Cool Commentator said...

Hey Karl! long time no "see"! I see you are still flying, fantastic!!! When I went to NYC last year it took 7 hours to get there and then 5.5 on the way back because of the tail winds - funny thing was nobody that was with me believed that was possible and insisted that we were simply taking another route . . . idiots! I gave up trying to convince them!

I hope all is well for you! Pop in soon for a catch up!

KARL NOVAK said...

Hey creative student,
Thanks for checking back in. I'm long overdue for a look-see of your site again. All these "expert" travelers in the back have no clue as to how all this "magical stuff" works. I'm sure the crews want to fly longer over the pond......NOT....LOL! Hope all is well. karl