A Norwegian Airlines 787-9 Dreamliner has set a transatlantic speed record from New York to London for a subsonic jet.
The jetstream is strong this time of year and was clocked as strong as 202mph on Monday during the daytime Norwegian flight (DY7014) from New York JFK to London LGW.
The flight, reaching speeds as high as 776mph (Mach 0.85), took only 5hr,13min to reach London Gatwick. That shatters the previously held record of 5hr,16min set by British Airways in 2015.
Captain Harold van Dam told the Daily Mail that the record could have been even more impressive if not for turbulence at lower altitudes..
We were actually in the air for just over five hours and if it had not been for forecasted turbulence at lower altitude, we could have flown even faster.
Still No Concorde
While 5hrs, 13min is very impressive for a transatlantic flight, the record still falls far short of supersonic travel on Concorde, which routinely made the journey in three hours.
The Concorde record was set in February 1996, when a British Airways “Speedbird” from New York JFK took just 2hrs,52 min,59 seconds to reach London LHR.
Top speeds on that flight were 1,350mph.
CONCLUSION
A strong jet stream means fast eastbound travel…but slower westbound travel. Don’t look for any speed records to be broken on the return to New York.
Cool story! Thanks for posting it.
(not to be an annoying avgeek, but did you notice that the pic is of a 737, not a 787? norwegian has some nice 787 pics at media.norwegian.com)
Huh? I see a 787.
@ GS – it appears a little edit was made…
“reaching speeds as high as 776mph (Mach 0.85)”, Mach 1 is 767 mph so they were going a little faster than Mach 0.85. Since there real speed is ground speed they can really be going over Mach 1 in ground speed.
That’s great!
These articles about speed records are a bit misleading. There should be explanation that the speed of 776mph is actually ground speed rather than airspeed which of course is much lower. To state that the plane went 776mph implies that it went supersonic which in reality no subsonic plane can do.