My bad, I meant 600 knots!
@Raza Thanks for the response. So if I “pay” to travel to the airport I get it for a week (starting Sunday night or whatever the equivalent is in my time zone) and then that will generate tasks to complete?
I only downloaded the app in the last few days so perhaps when the gameweek begins the game will show me a tutorial or something.
Not exactly. You can pay to travel to an airport for 30 minutes. You can also use a “Free Ticket” item instead.
Once you are at an airport, you can click on it to see its weekly mission. There are 6 tasks that if you complete, allow you to travel to the airport for free as many times as you want for the entire week. You can’t see the weekly mission until you travel there, but there is a website that you can check beforehand (if you want). As @Raza said, the week ends at midnight UTC between Sunday and Monday regardless of when you unlocked it.
The tasks for the weekly mission must be completed while you have traveled to that airport; although you can complete them over multiple travels and even on different days. As @Raza said, you can often complete them in one 30-minute trip. Usually there are 4 tasks that are pretty easy and 2 that are situational. I’ve had to use “Catch Again” or a second trip a few times.
The cost of the travel is proportional to the distance from where you currently are. It’s 10-12 coins to travel to nearby airports. This is useful because you can hop from airport to airport before your 30 minutes is up. Or once you get free travel to an airport for the week, you can hop from there.
I’ve found that if I am at a busy airport and spring for the unlimited photos for 30 minutes @ 75 coins, I can make well more than 75 coins back. So one common strategy that I have seen is to save up enough, travel to your target airport, pay for unlimited 30 minutes, then work on completing the tasks for the weekly mission while getting perfect catches to pay off what you have spent.
Even if you fail, you break even. You also know the remaining tasks so you can keep an eye on the airspace and travel back to complete the week. Or if you check the web, you can wait to travel until you see the right planes nearby.
Regarding the daily missions, they aren’t always easily doable. I haven’t even bothered with the 600 knots or the Antonov aircraft. I’ve struggled to find 500 knots (that I could reach). @LSLGuy’s tip is east-bound very helpful though.
A couple other tips that took me too long to realize:
So is it worth trying to travel to an airport now, even though it’s Saturday?
If you have enough to travel + 75 coins for 30 minutes, you can roughly break even – so I think so. Especially if it is a busy airport with blue sky.
Reading both of the last two posts about speeds together, the goal for speed is groundspeed. And it’s in knots. Good to have clarity.
500 would be frequently doable for an eastbound long haul airliner or long haul bizjet. 747, 787, A330, A350 all cruise at a fairly high Mach which leads to no-wind speeds in the upper 400s of knots which leads to eastbound with-the-wind groundspeeds often over 500, and very occasionally into the 600s. 757 & 767 are slightly slower (and also not all that common anymore). As a rule of thumb, the jet stream is faster in winter, so the 600 KGS quest might be much harder in August than February.
If you’re seeking fast, don’t waste time even looking at 737s or A320 series.
Most Cessna bizjets are slow, but they have one that’s about the fastest non-fighter in the sky: the Citation X or X+. Those haul ass and if you find one up high eastbound, it’s a good bet you’ll get a high groundspeed.
Fighters of course can go stupid fast at any altitude. Briefly. So the trick is catching them doing it. Their typical cruise speeds for mid altitude ferrying or driving from home to practice target area or reverse are 737ish.
I have no useful advice on how to catch fighters doing their speed thing. The ones who’re serious about investigating (or hurting) somebody today aren’t broadcasting ADS-B.
Thank you so much; I could have worded my response better. I appreciate your clarification.
(in my defense, which rests on insanity, I’m preparing for an evening family gathering with 18 people, for which I’m smoking a lamb roast)
Can’t find a fighter but am tracking a Lockheed U2 over Wisconsin at the moment. Not sure if I want to waste my only Catch Anywhere token on it though!
Yes, but what’s the U-2s groundspeed? Enquiring minds want to know!
If it’s USAF, decent bet it’s going to land back to Beale AFB where it (probably) came from. If NASA then to land back at Palmdale where it (probably) came from.
And direction of travel!
NASA WB-57 east of Cedar Rapids, southbound at 330 kts
There are also a couple of Hawker Hunter fighters flying north of Santa Clara but even those aren’t flying at 600 knots! The fastest flights I’ve found are over the Atlantic in the high 500s. The hunt continues… I’ve got high hopes for South Korea later this evening.
Where is it now? I don’t think I have a U-2 yet.
Thanks!
Hunters are state-of-the-then-art early 1950s notso-fast jets.
At redline they’re faster than modern fast airliners. But they can only achieve redline in a dive. Given any decent head start, say 30 miles, any modern long haul airliner can outrun one easily. They’ll never catch up before they run out of fuel.
NASA’s WB-57s live at Ellington in Houston.
I never did a get a 600+ kts flight yesterday. I did get an Antonov, though; a -124 over Saudi Arabia. Easy to find, since it’s rare enough to be red.
Today’s mission was almost ridiculously easy. I did it with two catches. Also finished the Tulip trophy for 1,000 planes from United Airlines.
If you do want to complete the tasks for an airport, keep the time zone in mind. I’ve gone to some airports in the middle of the night (their time) to catch a particular plane, but couldn’t complete the tasks because there wasn’t enough traffic that time of day.
Since I’m in London and it was the evening I went to New York which was into its late afternoon. I easily got the coins back in the 30 mins of unlimited photos. Seems that’s a bit of a hack if you have the time. Just go to a busy area and snap away. Boring but effective.
Never did find a 600+ knots flight!
Came here to post the same thing. I had it already completed and didn’t even realize it. Beech, Boeing, and NA flight is a typical day for someone in the US.
I didn’t either, but looked today and it was much easier with @LSLGuy’s suggestion. The steam of planes NW of Japan to S of Alaska has several. I found four, up to 617 knots.
I sometimes see a ton of gliders in Europe – typically France. I assume these are clubs and classes.
Is it a popular hobby there?
My left-handedness strikes again. I meant NE of Japan.
I’ve spent enough time on the SkyCards subreddit to know that people level up cards in wildly different orders. My first cyber card (the highest tier, 750k XP) was the Embraer E175 Long Wing because I’m near O’Hare and there are a ton of them flying in and out of there, but if you catch those Spitfires every time you see them, you’ll level it up to cyber pretty quickly.
That’s funny, this is my highest card (gold) too for the same reason. If there’s nothing else to catch, there’s always a few of these at ORD.
Why is the trophy for United a tulip, and not a broken guitar?