The Anonymous Widower

Storm Éowyn Jet Stream Powers BA Flight To Near Subsonic Record

The title of this post, is the same as that of this article in The Times.

These two paragraphs describe this extraordinary flight.

A transatlantic flight propelled by jet-stream winds whipping up Storm Éowyn came close to the subsonic speed record on Wednesday.

British Airways flight 274, an Airbus A350, reached a ground speed of 814mph and shaved 45 minutes off its journey from Las Vegas to Heathrow, according to flight radar records. The record for subsonic speed is 835 mph and the typical cruise speed is about 600 mph.

I feel, we’ll have more and more flights like this, if these air conditions get more common, as the years roll by.

Ignoring the two flights, I had on Concorde, I’ve had several exhilarating flights on commercial airlines.

• At least twice in the last few years, I’ve come over from Schipol to Southend on easyJet and the crew has taken a flight profile that saves fuel. Why not? It’s one way to cut carbon emissions.
• I was also on a British Airways Jumbo into Dulles, where the pilot showed how a 747 could do an economical landing like a small Cessna and get everybody to the terminal in double-quick time.
• There was also the case, when, with the family, I got stuck in St. Lucia and we had an extra night in an excellent hotel, after an engine failure on the flight, that would have taken us back to the UK. The next day’s flight was one of the last 747 400s, with a fifth engine bolted under its armpit and enough crew and equipment to get the stricken plane airworthy again. Twenty-four hours later with two planes on St. Lucia, the decision was made to fly to London, omitting the stop at Barbados, with all seats taken. Our plane was loaded, backed down the runway, so that the captain had maximum length, with its tail hanging out over the ocean. He then cheekily topped up the fuel, so that used in taxiing had been replaced. After, a very noisy full-power take-off, Heathrow was made in one and the the captain made the point of apologizing for the bumpy landing, as the autoland system needed adjusting.

As I indicated in the text good airmanship will be the first action that airlines use to cut emissions.

I have used that myself to save fuel, when I was taking my Cessna 340 to faraway places.

One holiday, C had booked that we’d go to the Almalfi Coast. We would fly to Naples in the Cessna and then hire a car.

• I decided to leave the UK from Southend and because it was a long flight, I would take on the maximum amount of fuel possible. As with British Airways in St. Lucia, I was fully-fueled at the end of the runway.
• As I had a unique British instrument rating called an IMC Rating, I knew that French Air Traffic Control would let me fly at 19,5000 feet( FL 195) through France, which meant I could be at around 180 knots.
• The French should have dropped me down for Italy, but I continued past Corsica, Sardinia and Rome, until I did an instrument approach into Naples.
• That was a distance of 980 miles as a crow would fly.

But by planning it properly and with a little bit of help from French ATC, we managed it safely, fast and very easily.

January 24, 2025 - Posted by AnonW | Transport/Travel | Airbus A350, Amalfi Coast, Aviation, Barbados, Boeing 747, British Airways, Cessna 340, Decarbonisation, EasyJet, Heathrow Airport, Italy, Las Vegas, Schipol Airport, Southend Airport, St. Lucia, Storm Éowyn