V-Flyer

I have just been looking at some old photos and found one showing us boarding a Boeing 707 when my mum and dad took us to Los Angeles back in July 1973. It was a British Caladonian flight direct from Gatwick.
It says on the back of the photo, only 11 hours to LA! I remember the captain telling us we were going into a stack when we arrived so there was the usual traffic delays. It is interesting that the flight time all those years ago was not much different to today. To me, it seems that the 707 was either a very good aircraft or the modern ones havn`t progressed much.

It's all linked into that little thing called the Speed of Sound.

Aircraft (regular ones) have issues (structural, heat, aerodynamic and others) when they approach Mach 1.0.

As a result, a regular plane can only get up to around M 0.88 at most - any more than that, and there would need to be some SERIOUS re-design (ala Concorde) going on.

And with airport / air traffic control congestion the way it is, I'm amazed the time taken has gone up, rather than down!

Well the scheduled time for a flight from London-Paris is actually greater than it was in the 30s as the airlines build in some "fudge factor" to allow for delays etc.

Cheers,
VS045

The published route time and actual flying time are two different things! They build in quite a large margin incase of delays, that way if you are late setting off the captin can say they pushed on and managed to get you to your destination on time or even early!!

In a way it is a good thing as it means the chances of missing connections is reduced, but it would be even better if flights left ontime and arrived early! Not that that seems to happen much, especially with the Virgin boarding scrum! Although the bext flight time ever was with BA we keft an hour late and arrived over Heathrow about an hour and half early, but of coarse we had to circle for an hour until our landing slot:))!!

Michael

Originally posted by Paul H
it seems that the 707 was either a very good aircraft or the modern ones havn`t progressed much.

But the amount of jet fuel burned has decreased considerably. Modern planes are also much quieter inside and out!

Originally posted by preiffer
It's all linked into that little thing called the Speed of Sound.

And money!

Ah, but does the 707 have V:Port or Seats that turn into beds...

No V port, but they were showing Gene Hackman in the French Connection on the main screen. My dad could even have a cigarette at the back of the plane. Luckily some things have improved. I remember the breakfast even now. It did not taste of anything I could recognise but each item all tasted the same.

Hmm, French Connection.... Were parachutes supplied as standard?

Interesting on the way back from TPA earlier this month our 777 according to the seat map was travelling at over 1000kph due to extremely strong tail winds. Just how close is this to the speed of sound (showing my ignorance)?

Paul

Originally posted by p17blo
Just how close is this to the speed of sound (showing my ignorance)?

Unfortunately, it's not a strict speed - it's a factor of an equation that varies by second, let alone day.

There's a pretty clear explanation on wikipedia.com with the example for a STANDARD day (15C at Sea Level) @ 29,000ft being 1083kmph.