Video of Cirrus parachute deployment yesterday morning. Plane was piloted by former Wal-Mart CEO Bill Simon.
All walked away with minor injuries, though I’d love to be a fly on the wall when the woman who was driving the involved pickup truck calls her insurance company to report this accident.
PA-28 makes a hard landing (video)
Is it safe to say that probably hurt like hell?
Hey, thanks for that. That would be a pretty cool job I think. There’s been an RJ85 come out to Australia for the last couple of fire seasons.
I have been told that there was an incident where a Jaguar (the car) pranged a Jaguar (the plane) which did indeed cause much confusion with the insurers.
I have a random question. Is there any form of general aviation that would allow for flying faster than a commercial jet? Maybe the better way to ask is, are there private jets that fly faster than hopping on Delta/Virgin/United/etc.? Something that would be available to the general public if they had enough money, so I don’t want to count any military jets or the like.
If you’re looking at total trip time, then usually yes. A GA plane can fly from almost any airport directly to almost any other within range. No plane changes, little surface driving to get to your final destination. On the airlines, you’re at the mercy of their schedules and you can only go to larger airports. The speed of an airliner only makes the difference if, say, you live next to JFK and you want to go to a place next to LAX.
That’s actually what I’m referring to, however, though your point about getting more directly from A to B is well-taken.
Rephrased: are there any private jets with a faster cruising speed than a commercial airliner?
If you are talking pure airspeed and not trip time, the Cessna Citation X is capable of Mach .91 That’s about as good as it gets if you don’t count privately owned ex-military aircraft.
I flew a Lear 60 for a while, and those are about as fast as most airliners. I remember a trip to Florida once where we were planning to leave the plane there and airline back. We ended up racing our own return flight there because they took off at about the same time, but I think we actually had a slight speed advantage on them.
Many private jets also fly higher than airliners. In the Lear and some Citations its normal to cruise at 45,000 feet.
ETA: Wow. I don’t refresh for 10 minutes and I come at number 5. Good answers above.
Yes, sort of.
Airliners come in a variety of speeds, with RJs the slowest jets, 737s / A320s next, 757/767/A330 next, and 747/787 fastest. The difference across that range is about 15%.
Most bizjets are towards the upper end of that range. So slightly faster than the most common airliners, the 737s and A320 series. The very fastest bizjets are a few percent faster than even the fastest airliners.
Everybody is limited to flying slower than the speed of sound for both regulatory and practical reasons. So the fastest civilians aren’t going that much faster than the guy in the cheap seats on BudgetWings Airlines.
As noted above, the real gain for the fatcats in personal jets is all the ground time. Their air times aren’t much different but their door to door times sure are.
Here is a whole thread from a few years ago on this topic: Private jets and speed - Factual Questions - Straight Dope Message Board
Forgive the further ignorance, but why is that?
:smack: Thanks. Apparently, both my curiosity and memory-failure run in seven-year cycles.
I didn’t realize it was you last time. Honest. I just knew I’d written something on topic, searched it up, & pasted it above.
Well, the Lears were designed for high altitudes. The marketing for the 60 says something like, “18 minutes to FL 450!” Just speculating, but I’d say it’s for better speed at less fuel burn. Jet engines are most efficient up high.
On the other hand, the Citation I fly now can get to 45,000, but has nowhere to go once it’s there. We usually file for 41 or so, and go higher if necessary.
ISTR hearing once, decades ago, that the original Lear 23 could climb faster than one of the jets the Air Force used. F-86? Seems a little late for that.
Pretty much the answer to altitude questions is that takeoff runway length requirements size the engines. And the engine tech level sizes the absolute fuel consumption and how it varies with altitude.
The early bizjets were straight turbojets so fuel economy sucked until very high altitude. And they were meant to fly from mostly secondary airports that back in the 60s had pretty short runways. So to get good fuel mileage which converts directly into range they had to fly high. So the wing was sized for that.
And in the era of lower-altitude jets (707s, 727s, DC9s), this gave the bizjets an “express lane” above all the proles.
Later models have carried on the tradition, with short field performance and range still important even though engine tech has improved immensely.
The proles now fly a bit higher than the Olden Dayes, and so do the fatcats. But their sanctuary is getting squeezed as LL says. Probably 75% of cruising bizjets I see are above me. But the other 25% are level or below. I never saw that from a 727.
It’s also quieter up there, which eases the effort to make a small cabin that’s all surface area be quiet enough to keep the fatcats happy. Or more precisely, for any given actual speed, the higher you fly the less total dynamic blast pressure you get from the air passing the aircraft at that speed. Which dynamic pressure is the driving energy for perceived noise.
Does that also lend itself to (relatively) less turbulence?
And easier to seal a small tube for internal pressure keeping??
Less bleed air used = more efficient engine over all, even if a small gain?
I don’t follow you Gus.
Yes, all else equal less bleed air for pressurization would be helpful to fuel consumption.
But the higher you fly the more differential pressure you need to maintain a comfortable cabin. So you need it to be extra-air tight, not less. And you still need X amount of airflow from bleed air for ventilation.
So overall I’m not seeing how higher altitude benefits bleed air consumption. Maybe I’m looking at from the wrong end of the telescope though.