winds aloft ... wow

[avbuff00 1]

from narita to Incheon FL 380 253@160 for a gs of 305 highest I've seen kevin  okeefe

[downscc 1,327]

Full names in the PMDG forums please.  That's not unusual, especially in the winter.  I had a 200 kt tail wind last week in at B77L.

 

During WWII, it was those winds that forced the USAF to lower the B-29s bombing altitudes, and meteorologists were just figuring out what a jet stream was.

[Chock 17,769]

An old friend of mine (Wing Commander Jimmy Jay) who encouraged me to learn to fly when I was a school kid, told me this interesting tale many years ago:

 

Jimmy was an experienced RAF pilot who flew many types, including Spitfires in combat during WW2. But on this occasion he was flying the (then fairly new) Gloster Meteor not long after the war, and he once let down through the clouds in preparation for landing, unaware that there had been a massive (200 mph plus) Northerly wind up at high altitude where he had been flying for quite some time. Upon descending out of the cloud cover, he expected to see England below him, but instead found himself over France not near any suitable airfields and low on fuel!

 

At the time some Meteors had ejector seats fitted and some not, and he was in one without the ejector seat; some weeks before, a pilot had tried to bail out of one in a similar situation and sadly that pilot's chute got caught on the tailplane and it crashed, killing him, so my friend was desperately trying to figure out how he'd clamber out of his Meteor if that should prove necessary. Anyhow, he started heading for England and luckily he managed to get his aeroplane down onto a disused emergency airfield dating from WW2 which he spotted on the south coast of England. When he shut the aeroplane down, it had a mere three gallons of fuel left on board and it had to be dismantled and put onto a truck to get transported to a larger airfield, because the field he had landed it on was too short for it to take off again.

 

Pretty cool flying eh?