TK flight went 800 miles extra...to arrive 10 mins earlier

[Woozie 732]

TK800 from Panama to Istanbul took a rather unusual route over greenland recently, adding 800 miles to its total distance, in order to ride a strong jetstream. And it still arrived 10 minutes ahead of schedule. Max GS was 610 kts....what a ride!

https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/a24118359/turkish-airlines-flight-800-jet-stream/

Flightradar replay:

https://www.flightradar24.com/data/flights/tk800/#1e4aee11

Standard route:

 

Jetstream detour:

 

Edited October 28, 2018 by Woozie

[Guest]

Good surfing to be had up there at the moment.

I was ferrying an A2A PA-28 Cherokee from Florida back to the UK a couple of days ago and was hitting 200 kts Ground Speed at times between Goose Bay and Bluie West One. 

I waited three weeks at Goose Bay for that weather system. Glad I did.

Edited October 28, 2018 by Guest

[John_Cillis 2,406]

Fastest groundspeed one of my flights ever had exceeded 700 mph according to the pilot onboard.  We were flying from Seattle to Phoenix and had an incredible tailwind and according to the pilot we broke the record for that route, coming home in a little more than an hour.  Flying from Phoenix to Disneyworld my gps reported times when we exceeded 630mph groundspeed, and we arrived quite early.  The jet stream is like Finding Nemo's East Australia Current, just with no turtles.  Also it is fun to do wave soaring when the wind is just right, you can soar all day.  A friend had a scratch built glider and we used to fly it off a small hill just south of Napa Airport, that always had a sea breeze upon it.  He could climb the glider over 500 feet above us and fly as long as he wanted, riding the wave back and forth above the hill.  We never found a more perfect spot than that hill, and no other RC glider pilots knew about it or there to "shoot us down" with radio interference.  Glider pilots that used to wave soar over Mt. St. Helena in the north Napa Valley could climb up to 25,000 feet and would alert ATC to their presence.  Must have been fun to be them!

John

[birdguy 3,943]

On ‎10‎/‎29‎/‎2018 at 9:08 AM, Cactus521 said:

Glider pilots that used to wave soar over Mt. St. Helena in the north Napa Valley could climb up to 25,000 feet and would alert ATC to their presence. 

My parents retired to a retirement trailer park in Calistoga.  The gliderport was right in their back yard.  Took my first sailplane ride there.  Sadly the gliderport is gone now.  You  can still enjoy the thermal mud baths though.

Noel