Fastest commercial jet airliner speed?

[Barchettaman]

Returning from NY yesterday with a 115 mph tailwind the Flight Tracker thingy had our ground speed at 615 mph. The plane was a 767 I think.

This got me thinking - Concorde and Concordeski excepted, what's the fastest ground speed that commercial jets achieve?

At 615 mph we can't have been that far off Mach 1, surely?

[thebraketester]

768mph is mach 1

[grumbledoak]

And Mach 1 will be air speed, not ground speed.

[anonymous-user]

http://www.groundspeedrecords.com/index.php

This is a website where pilots take photos of their speedometers. Although different aircraft and even different airlines are flying at different speeds (Mach numbers) , the tailwind components are obviously crucial.

[Blaster72]

thebraketester said:

768mph is mach 1

Are you sure?

Anyway, apart from biz jets and Concorde types I think the Airbus A380 is the fastest. What the fastest recorded ground speed is I don't know but that's not a function of the aircraft anyway just wind speed.

Edited by Blaster72 on Friday 25th November 07:27

[thebraketester]

Well I was until you put doubt in my mind. :-)

[768]

Subject to a bunch of the usual caveats, it sounds about right to me.

[Blaster72]

Only teasing, it changes depending on temp and pressure.

You're right that on a standard day at sea level Mach 1 is around 768mph. At higher altitudes not so.

[anonymous-user]

Blaster72 said:

Are you sure?

Anyway, apart from biz jets and Concorde types I think the Airbus A380 is the fastest. What the fastest recorded ground speed is I don't know but that's not a function of the aircraft anyway just wind speed.

Edited by Blaster72 on Friday 25th November 07:27

It's absolutely a function of the aircraft type. A M.86 aircraft with 200 kits tailwind will still have a faster ground speed than a M.79 one with the same tailwind.

[Blaster72]

I see what you mean, I suggest the A380 will have the ground speed record then.

[anonymous-user]

Fast plane with big tailwind is faster than slow plane with same tailwind.

[Blaster72]

Too fast for my lightbulb moment and sneaky edit there!

[Hugo a Gogo]

if you were flying at 800mph, in a 200 mph tailwind, you wouldn't break the sound barrier though, would you?

just as if you were flying around the equator, you are going +1000mph

[Markbarry1977]

Fastest commercial passenger plane (not business jet et al) after Concorde was the VC 10 that the RAF used. It was bloody loud and one of the reasons the RAF got rid of it was the fines it paid at every airport it took off from.

Still holds the record for fastest Atlantic crossing of a sub sonic aircraft.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vickers_VC10

Edited by Markbarry1977 on Friday 25th November 08:12

[NicheMonkey]

Although not as widely used other commercial airliners like the A380 or 747 the Cessna Citation X business jet's maximum cruising speed is 700mph. Not sure on seating capacity think it's about 16.

[Barchettaman]

Thanks all, really interesting stuff.

[Eric Mc]

I always thought that the fastest non supersonic airliner was the Convair 990. The Trident could also shift - once it got going.

[pherlopolus]

thebraketester said:

768mph is mach 1

At what altitude/temperature though?

[Equus]

pherlopolus said:

thebraketester said:

768mph is mach 1

At what altitude/temperature though?

This.

I was under the impression that the 'basic' (typical) figures usually quoted were 760mph at sea level, dropping to 660mph at 36,000 feet (with further variations for local temperature/pressure.

Dunno about you guys, but we don't get many airliners flying flat out at sea level, where I live.

[Eric Mc]

During a test flight in the early 1960s a DC-8 is claimed to have genuinely gone supersonic - in a shallow descent.