Somehow or other, the Convair airliners got a reputation among the fans for being fast. Far as anyone now can tell, it’s at least 90% myth.
On the back of the 9/61 OAG is a Convair ad describing how they test-flew a 990 at Mach 0.97.Doesn’t claim it was level flight, tho. They converted 990s into 990As, trying to raise airspeed enough to satisfy American Airlines – dunno how well they succeeded.
In 1997 I heard a talk by a Boeing engineer. He said that for a long time, they worked to increase range, but now that they could fly non-stop halfway around the world, the current demand of the airlines was for greater fuel efficiency.
And when you think about it, in practical use what you need when it comes to long range is to reliably get across the ocean or the undeveloped regions with adequate reserves, and fuel economy does contribute to that too.
Fuel economy is the primary determinant of range. Double fuel efficiency and you double range. Double the amount of fuel you carry and you less than double range, since you burn more fuel carrying the extra fuel.
These last two posts are obviously correct. I just repeated what the Boeing engineer said. That they were no longer with increasing range, only fuel efficiency. It was just an offhand remark. The talk was to a CS dept. at Stanford and was mainly about their experience with computer design and construction,
There have been scheduled airline flights out of Australia that were scheduled half-empty.
I can’t remember why they were doing it (approval or equipment), but it got the weight down and the range up, as a temporary measure for very long-haul flights.
Don’t forget the canceled Sonic Cruiser, Mach .98 (some of its tech got spun off into the 787 note).
“Rarely or never” is exactly right. A 707 flying NY to LA in 1959 would cruise around 540 mph true air speed; it might have been capable of a 600 mph cruise (at lower altitude) but would have no hope of doing the trip nonstop. When fanjets appeared in 1961 they could speed up a bit (560 mph, say) and AA did cut the schedule time for a year or two, but roughly zero airlines have regularly cruised faster than 560 mph since then, except for Concorde and the Tu-144.
Airline schedules were faster 50-60 years ago, tho – typical jet schedule Los Angeles to San Francisco was 70 minutes or less. PSA scheduled Electras at 60 minutes – wonder how close they came to that. And how close 727s came to the 45 minutes they scheduled in the late 1960s.
The nominal schedules published have since also become more “conservative” on account of preserving the carrier’s on-time record and leave flight crews and dispatchers better margins.
This, exactly. It’s not that the planes flew those routes any faster 50 years ago; it’s that the airlines pad the schedules to account for taxiing and waiting time on the ground at both ends, and any deviations from the direct flight route due to weather, because the airlines are publicly graded on on-time performance.
If you are on a flight today which leaves the gate on time, doesn’t have to wait in a queue to take off, and doesn’t have to fly around bad weather, you are pretty much guaranteed to arrive at your destination early.