Highest tailwind I ever experienced was in a severe jet stream in 2004: 231kts directly on the tail, (I took a photo of the PFD/ND), and it lasted for less than five minutes over West Virginia at FL370. Our filed true airspeed (TAS) was about 460 kts. 460 + 231 = 691. So, our groundspeed was 691kts; that's 794mph. It took us just a few minutes to get all the way across West Virginia, and only about four seconds to cross Charleston. And it was perfectly smooth. It was the only time in my life that I was traveling at what would have been - if we had been down low like this video - faster than the speed of sound. But of course, the speed of sound at 37,000 feet is right at 573kts. So, we were below that speed at 460kts TAS. And our indicated airspeed was about 250kts or so. I'll have to find that image...
same thing happened to me on a dreamliner from tokyo to lax. The flight there took 12 hours and we went up towards the north pole. On the way back we had a 200+ knot tail wind so we cut straight across the pacific and got back in 8 hours.
@@RoosterFPV Speed of sound varies predominantly with temperature. On a day with ISA conditions (a temperature of 15 degrees Celsius and a pressure of 1013.2 HPa ), the speed of sound is roughly 750mph. As the temperature reduces (as it does with altitude until you reach the tropopause) so the speed of sound reduces markedly. Interestingly, the effect of reduced pressure at altitude, means that for a given IAS (Indicated Airspeed), one can get remarkably close to the speed of sound at height, compared to flying at the same speed at lower levels. Another interesting aside, one can get bits of the aircraft going supersonic, while the main airframe remains sub, or trans, sonic. When close to the speed of sound, some of the airflow may well be accelerated in excess of the speed of sound, particularly over the top of the wings, and just where the fuselage reaches its widest point, so some control surfaces may well experience supersonic airflow. One of our 787’s got caught in severe mountain wave crossing the Andes a few years back, and the highest recorded speed was Mach 0.96, the report stated that it was likely that some parts of the airframe experienced supersonic flight! The highest I’ve experienced in a civilian aircraft was 0.92, which was more than enough excitement for the night, as we were supposed to be at 0.85!
If cars were as expensive as planes, they'd be driven much more carefully. If the average idiot could fly a plane, they'd be falling out the sky on a daily basis
@@tedmihalca I think more important factors were high operating costs combined with low number of passengers the plane could take, aging aircrafts + the fatal accident in Paris in 2001. Sonic boom was apparently OK for 30+ years of its operation.
It's crazy how distance can affect perspective and perceptions so much from the ground looking up it doesn't look like they're moving that fast at all but boy are they
also explains why when you watch footage of the space shuttle taking off with a camera mounted pointing downward, the ground falls away very quickly at first but then tapers off, even thought the rocket is accelerating at a huge rate
I imagine this every time I fly. Sometimes, when flying on a clear, bright sunny day, if the sun is positioned just right, you can see the shadow of your aircraft zipping along ground for some perspective.
If there is no shadow of the aircraft on the ground, ( which is most of time ) I’ll put my finger or better yet, a pencil or pen point, on the window on a road or highway, and see how fast it moves along the ground. (Anything to keep me entertained on a long, boring, cramped, uncomfortable flight😁
@@Bigbuddyandblue thought I was the only one who does this exact same thing lol. It’s definitely a form of entertainment for anyone who’s fascinated by aviation.
I never looked into it before, but apparently a commercial plane at cruising speed (~570mph) is only 35% slower than a common 115 grain, 9mm bullet at ~880mph.
@@Tales41 Bruh what are you talking about 🤣 My point was that 310 mph gap between the speed of a plane and the speed of a 9mm is a big difference. I didn’t say anything about shooting a plane with a 9mm.
The average speed of commercial planes is 880-926 km/h (475-500 knots; 547-575 mph). It's possible that some airlines drop the cruising speed to 300 knots, to save fuel.
As an air traffic controller, the highest ground speeds I’ve seen on civilian jets personally is 660kts and slightly less. The first was a Citation X and the others usually a Dreamliner with a 120-170 knot tailwind. But the tailwinds I’m seeing in the comments blow my mind. As an enroute controller, if you don’t factor the jet stream into your traffic situation, you’ll make an ugly situation much uglier and imminent when you give a routine 10-20 degree turn etc. Anyway, good to see others explain the difference and correlation between IAS, TAS, Mach #, ground speed, especially as it relates to altitude, temperature etc. Solid info every pilot and controller should know.
These tailwind speeds are pretty rare. I have had a 260 knots tailwind before, lasted for 10 minutes or so, I'm 99% sure I'll never experience that ever again. Glad I did though, we completed a good chunk of the flight in 15 minutes time
@@bostavely204 likewise, thank you for your service. You had a very respectful job as well! I am very passionate about aviation. Always wanted to be a commercial pilot but it worked out well for me. I love what I do. Sometimes it’s a little stressful but most of the time it’s not bad at all. Adrenaline gets flowing and those of us who enjoy the job enjoy the challenges.
It really is insane how quickly a plane can travel. The ground speed of many commercial jets can, in the right circumstances, even be higher than the speed of sound at sea level, meaning if a firework were to set off directly beneath a jet flying a direct vector above you, the plane could easily pass over your head before you even heard the bang. I can only imagine what it would be like to watch a Concorde fly overhead with optimal tailwind in one of these kinds of scenarios. The plane would be shockingly far behind you by the time the sound of the firework reached your ears even without good tailwind and whilst travelling much closer to the ground than in my hypothetical example above. The fact that you can get a ride on one of these incredible pieces of engineering for less than a train ticket from Glasgow to London is honestly incredible when you consider how immense the cruising speed is and how insanely high up you are during a normal commercial flight
Fun tip, on FlightRadar24, find a plane, zoom in really really close so the map is down to close to road levels and you get an idea of how fast it’s passing homes and roads in real time (instead of zoomed out like usual over large swathes of land).
That doesn’t look all that fast, but think about this. Most airliners cruise at an indicated airspeed of around 320 knots. Emphasis on the indicated part. This means that if you are flying with the wind, you could be flying at over 500 knots, 250 knots if you are against the wind, flying sorta sideways if it’s a cross wind etc. Yea, wind is that fast up there. So, that speed that you saw isn’t actually how fast you normally fly. That’s how fast you fly when you are against the wind, which is a major cause of flight delays. Edit to hopefully clear things up: Yes everybody in the comments, altitude, air density, and temperature do make more of a difference to true airspeed than wind does, but that’s already shown in the video here. The indicated airspeed is 250 knots, but it’s clear that the plane is going faster than that when the camera moves down. My comment was to the people who were saying it was slower than they expected. I was commenting on the fact that it could be even faster with a jet stream behind it. Yes, jet-streams can be up to 250 knots, and yes, the air is still smooth as glass even at that speed.
@@mctavishsoap3815 it is! It's less dense, there's less molecules of air per given volume compared to, say, at sea level. There's also far less pressure up there as well!
The wind is no were near 250knots up that high. You have indicated airspeed which is usually in between 200-300 knots on the airliners and then true airspeed. True airspeed is the indicated airspeed calibrated with the atmospheric pressure and temperature. Since the pressure and temperature are so low at such a high cruising altitude, the true airspeed is higher than the indicated airspeed would be. Now you can add the wind up at that altitude onto the true airspeed, which the wind is usually between 50-150knots in variable directions.
It's because it's still a bit higher, you can see the trees. If you're gonna see that perspective while driving in a car, then it would look a lot faster.
When I was really young I realized that if I held still and put my head against a seat or something and looked out the window, I could use the edge of the window to see how fast the plane was going along the ground, and I quickly realized it goes really darn fast.
@@nabilshaikh8134 no it’s not. If you’re traveling 500mph and you meet a plane that traveling same fast, opposite direction you would see it fly past for the same amount of time that you would from a static position and the aircraft traveling a 1000mph
@@21borders15 lol except in real life planes would never be allowed to get anywhere near each other mid-air to where you could meaningfully compare speeds visually
@@XxZeldaxXXxLinkxX actually in RVSM airspace, on busy routes jets will often cross on direct opposite tracks with just 1,000ft vertical seperation, no lateral seperation. It looks spectacular from the front, and gives a great impression of what 1000+ knots looks like 🙂
Thank you for the Awesome video. When I took a recent flight , l looked out the window as seen the planes shadow along the ground . It gave me a little perspective on how fast we were actually going. I am 54 and been lucky enough to take over 300 flights. Flying still amazes me.
Seeing the shadow is a rare treat. I don’t know why it feels exciting, but it does. If you’re ever on the ground and a shadow passes over you it evokes an ancient evolutionary shudder that many animals (including marine animals) feel when a predator swoops down.
@@albertbatfinder5240 You are correct. a planes shadow passing over you is so sudden it may take a moment to comprehend the cause but then you realize . it is a blessing from the the ultimate machine. the greatest of man's creation. a reminder of life , moving autonomously, merely passing thru yr personal world
I have flown real low in helicopters. Big problem is birds. They can take out a windshield or engine. Then there are wires. Very deadly. I hit a wire, I know.
@@resto-dw7gv Dead? Nope! I have come close far more than most. I hit a telephone wire of takeoff. Landed on a car driving down the road. Scared the hell out of the driver. I lived.
idk if this is just me but every time I'm on a plane I'm amazed by the idea that human figured how to create vast transportation system using jet engines and figured how to maintain it safe and taken for granted
I remember I was visiting the black hills in July 2010 and we stopped in Sioux Falls to see the actual waterfall on the Big Sioux River. As we are walking from the parking lot to the waterfall, I hear a plane coming in to land above us. Almost at the same time, I see a giant shadow of the plane zip across the entire park in 2 seconds. Really put into perspective just how fast planes are even when landing.
i've seen that on a beach before, the sand stretched a good 10km into the distance and you could see the plane's shadow just rip over it at a fantastic rate.
@@Ashvegas27 And the Earth goes around the sun about 4x faster than that. The Sun goes around the Milky Way 10x faster than the Earth goes around its orbit.
Good video. I've always imagined this when flying too. I've used the jet's tiny shadow way down on the ground as a reference. Because, since the sun's light rays are parallel, the speed of the plane's shadow is pretty much exactly the speed of the plane at any given time. I can directly see the plane's shadow zoom by over houses, roads, hills just like what's depicted in this animation. :)
@@xanid Not really. A cell phone has way higher power than the WiFi and Bluetooth of a TomTom. Passengers only have to switch off devices during landing and take-off procedures.
@@xanid the only reason you can't use phones is because when the plane is far away from a cell tower the phone has to use more power to get to it and that messes up the radio. gps doesn't do that.
@@x4r For example, TomTom showed we were approaching Paris, so I started a competition with the kids: "Who sees the Eifel tower first?" We clearly saw it! Same with the street of Gibraltar and other locations.
I got the same feeling seeing the trees come up on the camera as when you go right at the top of a cloud and then “hit” it. To me the speeds look the same as here, super cool!
Nothing like going 800 to 1000 feet per second close to the ground! 😄 What I do to get a better prospective, I'll just take the plane to about 500 feet above ground level and travel about 450 to 500 knots ground speed. (517-575mph) and select the passenger window view. That's a great way to see also.
You would be unlikely to see such a speed that close to the ground as you won't get the same tailwind component speed that low, meaning you won't go as fast. Which is a shame because it really would be a perfect way to visualise it!
What if someone mods the game to make ALL of the airspace have the same physics/mechanics as being 38,000 feet high? I imagine it would be hard to take off
@@GlitchMan1011 It would be hard but not impossible. But you would certainly need a much LONGER runway. You would basically need top air speed going over the wings to get enough lift to take off. More lenient on sea level with 1000 Mbars of air pressure
Let me tell you this This is one of the best videos i have ever seen in my life One of the videos here on youtube Thanks for the upload I always wondered about that speed
Easy way to do it on a plane: look out the window at one spot on the wing, and count how long it takes to cover some features on the ground like forests or lakes
Just to let you know: for ETE planning purposes, you don't look at your airspeed. You look at your groundspeed (GS). At 38,000 feet, your airspeed can be at 250 kts but your groundspeed (your actual traveling velocity) can be at 400+ kts.
Does GS take account of the longer distance travelled at altitude due to curvature of the Earth? I've no feel for how significant that might be though . .
@@geoffplywood6112 No, that would be the great circle distance. Groundspeed (GS) like the name suggests, only measures your speed relative to the ground in which it's essentially the "real" speed that you're traveling.
@@ChadDidNothingWrong Not a pilot but I believe you are correct. Same goes for if you have a strong tailwind, your airspeed will drop while your ground speed will increase
That is so impressive, looks like fast forward! When you're in a plane or look at them from the ground the look like they're moving so slow, just shows how massive our planet is!
@@MrxAskar and if your concern is "to be able to fly higher" to perceive everything at ground level slowly, you can always aboard manned satellites to do so, once again size of the planet is not a factor.
I am a Flight Sim game developer. Each tree takes about 12 days to composite and paint. Every branch has thousands of needles and then there are pine cones, nests, dead twigs, etc. to be done. That's why software costs so much!
That‘s nonsense. 250kts IAS in FL380 can be basically anything depending on temperature and wind. Therefore more important would be the TAS and respectively Ground Speed.
I saw a Sea Vixen at an air show, less than 100feet up and nudging supersonic. It approached in absolute silence, bumping up and down about 6inches and shock waves visible on the leading edges. It passed less than 100yards from me. I felt rather than heard the sound. Now that seemed awfully fast.
My father jumped off the local multistory car park when I was 6 years old. I always imagine his last image to be the ground coming towards him this fast. RIP
When you see a plane in the sky, and it appears to be moving slowly, just assume its going insanely fast. Most commercial airliners stay around 400-500 mph.
There is a simple way to see this while flying. Keep your head still and keep a reference on some point on the aircraft such as a wing leading edge, then observe how quickly the ground passes by this point. It works great in the 20's but higher even cars are difficult to see, but it gives a good sense of the speed
@@flybeep1661 "the effect whereby the position or direction of an object appears to differ when viewed from different positions, e.g. through the viewfinder and the lens of a camera"...I believe that I specifically said to keep one's head still. If you move your head you will get Parallax, unless you do not know what Parallax actually is.
Seeing another plane while you're flying is super creepy and surreal. Especially when you're up super high above the clouds and at the quickest stage. Literally zooms by
To be honest I expected it to be much faster! It still takes a few seconds to pass a farmers field... I'd like to see well known streets and buildings! New York or L.A. Then the relative to a fast car could be appreciated ;)
@@alejandroperez5368 you’re presuming the car would be on a highway, if it was on a country lane obeying the speed limit it would take at least a minute or two to pass those fields, trying to compare the speed of a car in comparison to a plane is abit ridiculous given the car has to follow roads, other traffic and speed limits, A plan is literally covering thousands of feet a second
@@royfontaine5526 Did I say something funny son?, a car doesn’t have the Luxury of darting over the top of fields as the crow flies, it would take atleast a minute or so to pass that vast farm land respecting the speed limits
Please do more! Also, can you give us a perspective from standing on the ground looking up at planes flying different speeds? I'd like to see what Mach 1, Mach 2, Mach 3 look like while standing on the ground looking up.. I hunt for UFO's so knowing what different speeds look like from the ground is important.. and at varying altitudes please... Thank you for this, excellent video!
I've frequently imagined what it would look like to have the ISS or a SpaceX craft whizz by perhaps 1,000 ft. off the ground at a ground speed of 17,000 mph. I mean literally, your eye blinks and it's gone.
I had actually watched such a simulation on Discovery or somewhere like that. They had ISS flying at about 200 metres or so at it's orbital velocity. I wanted to get a perspective of just how fast things in orbit actually are moving.
Exactly, -air density changes dramatically at altitude, -which is why they fly up there. Can you imagine the slow speeds and fuel consumption if they were to fly at low altitude? It would be insane.
I used to live a few blocks parallel to SeaTac flight path. When the sun angle was right, I got the shadows of the planes racing across my living room floor. That was fun for the kids.
You can feel this physically. Next time you go for a swim, try to see the bottom while you swim and notice the difference when you're floating compared to when you're swimming close to the bottom.
Indicated Airspeed is the speed shown on the airspeed indicator. Calibrated Airspeed is indicated airspeed corrected for position installation error. Equivalent Airspeed is calibrated airspeed corrected for compressibility. True Airspeed is equivalent airspeed corrected for temperature and pressure altitude. True airspeed is the speed of your aircraft relative to the air it's flying through. As you climb, true airspeed is higher than your indicated airspeed. Pressure decreases with higher altitudes, so for any given true airspeed, as you climb, fewer and fewer air molecules will enter the pitot tube. Ground speed is true airspeed +/- tailwind/headwind component.
This is how it would look like in a flat world. In reality, on the ground it would appear slower because the airplane is farther from the earth therefore it must cover a longer distance than on the ground.
For those who wonder: Up high the air is way less dense so you need to go faster to get the same amount of air molecules and hence the same lift than you would at ground level, like how dragging your hand through honey or syrup produces the same resistance as you sticking your hand out of a fast car; less dense means more speed needed for same effect. Any airplane needs to fly at X knots relative to _it_ to not stall, this is indicated or “felt” airspeed, which differs from “true” airspeed. A plane that needs to fly at 150kt will not stall at any altitude so long as the _indicated_ airspeed is 150, but if it is the _true airspeed_ that is at 150 it can stall if it goes too high, since it’s not fast enough to catch all the air molecules it needs at a high altitude where there’s just less of them
I love speed relativity!! Always wondered how a plane's speed would look like if it was going to fly past in front of me or even other things such as a satellite orbiting the earth or even a comet. Imagine watching them approaching from a distance and then flying past you a few feet away.
The 250kt speed shown here is the Indicated Airspeed (IAS/KIAS) which is the speed of the wind that the pitot tubes pick up when flying at any altitude. A similar type of airspeed is the Calibrated Airspeed (CAS/KCAS), which is the IAS that is corrected/calibrated for the accuracy of the pitot tubes and how the tubes are installed. True Airspeed (TAS/KTAS) is the IAS or CAS (interchangeable, depending on who you ask) that is corrected for the temperature and altitude at which the aircraft is flying in/at. This is the actual speed at which an aircraft flies when there is absolutely no wind. The higher an aircraft flies, the colder the outside temperature is (about 1-2°C lower per 1000 feet depending on where you are in the world) and the faster the aircraft flies due to less density/air particles slowing the aircraft down. This is a linear function up to 36,089 ft where from the base of the tropopause up the temperature remains constant at about -56.5°C. Ground Speed (GS) is the TAS corrected for any wind acting on the aircraft (headwind/tailwind component). This is the speed that is shown here in this video with the drone flying near the ground at the same speed as the aircraft, this is actually how fast the plane is flying over the Earth.
Thanks for the explanation! I've never understood the difference between IAS and TAS. ^^ So TAS is basically GS but relative to the (moving) air around the airplane and not relative to the Earth?
This is a great demonstration! Sometimes when i look out the window i look at the edge of the window like a 'ruler' imagine that line across the ground to get that same sensation of ground speed.
