1 hour ago, PMDG777 said:

Can you tell the forecasted speed from the chart?

Yup. The chart of this type is part of the pre-flight weather package for every crew to review before flight (as well as in the cruise for review, particularly on long haul flights). It provides very good information about en-route weather. although nowadays, there is some ipad weather app which provides even more accurate en-route weather forecast than the old SIGWX, it is still gives pilots a good big picture for the flight. 

One full black triangle = 50kts and one dash line = 10kts and half the dash line = 5kts 

On the chart you can see 3 full black triangles with two dash lines following behind that equals to 50 + 50 + 50 + 10 + 10 = 170kts 

 

For those who are interested, here is the reference document talking about the decode of the SIGWX, which used to be one of the ATPL weather course ground school topics, and I think it is still in the syllabus now.

It will probably be obsoleted in 10-15years time just like astro-navigation, when every one is so used to having the "ipad-like" device with the real time weather update capability. 

https://www.icao.int/safety/meteorology/WAFSOPSG/Guidance Material/Representing WAFS SIGWX Data in BUFR - V4 3 Final.pdf

 

1 minute ago, Driverab330 said:

Yup. The chart of this type is part of the pre-flight weather package for every crew to review before flight. It provides very good information about en-route weather. although nowadays, there some company weather app which provides even more accurate en-route weather forecast than the old SIGWX, it is still gives pilots a good big picture for the flight. 

One full black triangle = 50kts and one dash line = 10kts and half the dash line = 5kts 

On the chart you can see 3 full black triangles with two dash lines following behind that equals to 50 + 50 + 50 + 10 + 10 = 170kts 

 

Awesome thanks!

No worries mate. 

Simbrief also has these when you generate a flight plan and when the flight plan is combined with AS16, AS16 emulates these winds perfectly.

Skyvector can give you this info too, great for adjusting your route for more favorable winds. The shortest route isn't always the best.

 

 

Just a quick look at reality ... the web page "Ground Speed Records" shows photos of high ground speeds, as submitted by real life pilots.

Currently, the page is under reconstruction, but archive.org still has a fairly recent snapshot archived:

https://web.archive.org/web/20160323234926/http://groundspeedrecords.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&layout=blog&id=20&Itemid=1139

And it turns out ... the ground speed record for the 777-300ER (and -200) on this page ist 735 kts. Unfortunately, the image proving the record is temporarily not available (but I have seen it myself earlier, it was definitely there.)

 

p.s. and Edit

Some of the photos are still on the Facebook page. Just one ... this 777 is doing 495 kts of TAS with a tailwind of 214 kts. Now just add 30 more knots of true airspeed and you'll be doing some 735-740 kts ground speed. Awesome!

 

 

Edited July 11, 20178 yr by ps1flyer
real life photo added

That's mental. Bet that shaves a heap of time off the flight! Anyone remember the SIA A345 flight between WSSS and KEWR, it used to go either West or East depending on what way had the tailwind (normally East)

... or via the North Pole.

But that's exactly the point with long haul flight planning ... so often, the prevailing winds determine the route. (e.g. some months ago, when I flew real-life from Europe to Hong Kong, the European part of the route was as far down as Istanbul, but the return leg from Singapore - being 1500 miles south of VHHH - took me 1000 miles further north almost up to Moscow! )

Yes each black triangle is 50kts and each line is 10kts.

EDIT: Sorry didn't see the above post mentioning the same, must the time delay it takes to get down under

I flew back from NZQN to YSSY yesterday ITRW as pax on an A320 and we had 100+kts headwinds and rather rough midway across the Tasman.

A friend sent me a flight radar shot last night of an Qantas 737 from YBRM-YSSY doing 632Kts GS!

 

If you are interested in winds around Australia and Asia, The Bureau of Meteorology has an Aviation section. It provides Warning, Forecasts, charts of Grid Point Winds, SIGWX and Wind and Temperature. It is good for Route Sector Winds between major airports like Sydney and Melbourne too. 

5 hours ago, PMDG777 said:

That's mental. Bet that shaves a heap of time off the flight! Anyone remember the SIA A345 flight between WSSS and KEWR, it used to go either West or East depending on what way had the tailwind (normally East)

Yeah. When I went over to Germany a couple years ago, the tail wind was pretty hefty. I usually pop a ZQuil to knock myself out for a few hours on the flight so I'm relatively rested when we land, since I have a 2ish hour drive at that point. I really didn't sleep much because the flight was so much shorter than usual with the tail wind. Luckily, that year, I had my sisters with me to keep me awake...one of them brought an unfortunate Bieber mix.

My personal best IRL is about a 210 kt tail wind in the NG going from YYZ to YHZ. It equated to a 676 kt groundspeed. Pretty good for an NG.

Jack Colwill

15 hours ago, AirCanada235 said:

You have 153 knots almost directly on the tail of your aircraft - so yes - this is a possibility. More than likely you were inside of a jet core!

 

ITRW - I have personally have 140 on the tail and had a ground speed over 600kts. Just checked my log book and it was a VHHH to CYVR in a 77W in December of 2013 though.  We generally get amazing pushes from Asia to our North American bases in the winter months due to the strong jet stream

I remember having 183 knts on the tail a few years back/ NRT-YVR. Flight time was 6 hours 50 min. 

6 hours ago, Twistgrip said:

Yes each black triangle is 50kts and each line is 10kts.

EDIT: Sorry didn't see the above post mentioning the same, must the time delay it takes to get down under

I flew back from NZQN to YSSY yesterday ITRW as pax on an A320 and we had 100+kts headwinds and rather rough midway across the Tasman.

A friend sent me a flight radar shot last night of an Qantas 737 from YBRM-YSSY doing 632Kts GS!

 

I see you're an offshore pilot on the AW139. Looks like Bristow's too. Where you based?

I remember being a passenger on a MD8* many moon's ago (ENTC-ENFB*) that should have lasted 1:50 but we shaved off more than 30 minutes. I remember the captain making the announcment that we were flying faster than the speed of sound at some point. Don't know if he reported it because I tried to google, but only came up with a B737 doing the almost exact same thing in the opposite direction about 12 years ago. The article quote the captain at doing 1140 km/h at one time during the trip. Apparently they shaved 30 minutes off the trip as well.

 

*ENFB = Fornebu, the old airport of Oslo before Gardermoen took over.