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So I was just watching a Blue Angels special, where they flew from Pensacola to San Diego in an hr and a half. Is that even possible? So that brought up a question, which is what is the fastest a plane has gone from the East coast to West coast or vice versa?
The Blackbird was and still is simply amazing. Nothing like it before or since.
As far as transcon speed records set in a civilian aircraft, I BELIEVE (but don't know for certain-I don't have it in front of me) that record was set-and still stands-in a Convair 880 between Miami and San Francisco. 3:30 or so IIRC.
So I was just watching a Blue Angels special, where they flew from Pensacola to San Diego in an hr and a half. Is that even possible? So that brought up a question, which is what is the fastest a plane has gone from the East coast to West coast or vice versa?
I think the 'hour and a half' didn't take into account the 3 hour time difference :-)
From my years supporting F-15s in the Air Force a deployment from East Coast (Langley AFB) to West coast (Nellis AFB, George AFB, etc) Took about 4-5hours including at least one Air to Air refueling (we never hung more than the usual centerline tank for these flights). A 4.5 hour flight would seem to be 1.5 hours if you stated that it took off at 9 AM and landed at 10:30 AM wall clock time but the wall clock back at Langley would be reading 1:30 PM. that is why all mission times are done in ZULU time. I'll assume you understand the concept of the 24 letter designated time zones around the world if not let me know and i'll (or someone else here)can explain them.
I'm fully aware of the 24 hour clock. And yes, I do believe that transit time did take the time zones into account, which is also something I understand. Indeed I experienced this one time.
During half the year, you take off (westbound only) from Phoenix, Arizona and land at Ontario, CA and your landing time is five minutes earlier than your departure time. (i.e. takeoff at 1400 and landing at 1355).
How? because it's a roughly 55 minute flight and Arizona is one hour ahead. The same principle, incidentally that shows published arrival and departure times as an approx 8 hour differential for eastbound transcons but only three hours for westbounds.
So my claim about the Convair was in reference to in-flight transit time and had no correlation to time zones and crossings thereto.
I'm fully aware of the 24 hour clock. And yes, I do believe that transit time did take the time zones into account, which is also something I understand. Indeed I experienced this one time.
During half the year, you take off (westbound only) from Phoenix, Arizona and land at Ontario, CA and your landing time is five minutes earlier than your departure time. (i.e. takeoff at 1400 and landing at 1355).
How? because it's a roughly 55 minute flight and Arizona is one hour ahead. The same principle, incidentally that shows published arrival and departure times as an approx 8 hour differential for eastbound transcons but only three hours for westbounds.
So my claim about the Convair was in reference to in-flight transit time and had no correlation to time zones and crossings thereto.
The 3:30 for the Convair seems reasonable with 'normal tweaking; that would be put in place for a record attempt. I b elieve the Convair was considered the fastest commercial airliner of it's time.
I was suggesting it with the 1.5 hour time mentioned for the Blue Angels.
That F18 speed for the Blue Angels seems off a bit (unless they go faster now than they did when I was around them).
I would imagine you could count the Space Shuttle which could do it in about 18 minutes or so, maybe faster.
SR-71 for sure. Very impressive indeed.
Before that it was a B-58 Hustler supersonic bomber, 2 hours 56 seconds,
on March 5, 1962, Los Angeles to NYC.
Did round trip that day in 4 hours 41 minutes.
Always liked the B-58, my second fave after the ME-262
On the F-16 AB 1-6 eats 2-8% of total fuel every minute, you'd be out of gas in 45min or 337-500 miles from home depending on your climb profile. MIL thrust or 100% thrust, (the maximum setting with out afterburner) will barely sustain supersonic level flight (maybe it will on the F/A 18). A little nose down you could do it but IIRC MIL thrust still eats .5% of total fuel every minute.
I was a USAF maint ops officer (not a pilot) but I still knew intimate details of mission profiles. On XC (cross country) flights the most the 16s could stay up was 1.7 hrs with 3 external tanks and that was between 65-70% thrust @ mach .75-.85 @ 32.000FT depending on the tankers speed and load. No exact numbers because they had different loadouts.
Even if you could catch a different tanker at the precise strategic time. You'd still be looking at at least 2 hours.
Anyway..
Pensacola to San Diego is 1,530 NM (nautical miles). That means to make it in 1.5 hrs they would have to have an average speed of 1020 kts over the ground or mach 2.829 @ 30,000 feet to reach an equivalent average ground speed of 1020 kts.
Just not possible on many levels. but.. that was already the conclusion.
SR-71 is still the king at 64 mins. Officially anyway. Who knows what they are testing out at Groom Lake or Michael AAF.
One time I was watching NASA channel the space shuttle was on a perfect trajectory between Seattle and Miami (but it was 210 miles above earth, so it dosen't count) Anyway, it made the SR 71 seem slow. 2,734 miles in 9min 30 secs. Of course the space shuttle orbits (well it used to anyway) the earth in 91 mins.
Not without breaking a ****load of windows all the way across.
No such extensive breakage has been reported.
^^^^^^^ This.
Take it from an old military ATC'er, whose seen a lot of flight plans. Tactical military aircraft are not flown in this manner on long cross country positioning flights. Typical filed airspeeds don't vary that much from airliners.
Most anecdotes from fan boys, are deducted from the annals of Glenn, Yaeger, and others of the early jet age, when such flying was a bragging point. The environmental movement and fuel prices, combined with today's fiscal austerity, make this type of flying frowned upon by military leadership. The Blue Angels are hanging on by a thread budgetary wise anyway. They don't need any potentially harmful media attention.
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