What's the biggest headwind you big airplane guys have seen? My wife saw 174K on the nose @ FL380 coming up the East coast yesterday... Jim
Saw 180 something but it was quartering so our gs was 290ish(usually 440 ktas). Usually in winter winds 120 kts at altitude somewhere.
Don't know. I try to forget about those. I did have over 100 knots of tailwind once at 17,000. That was fun. I remember flying home once with a 60 knot headwind. A friend in a skyhawk was flying approximately the same route. When I looked down at my 60 knot groundspeed, I'm thinking, Chip must be having great fun. After I landed I noted that he bailed out early making a u -turn and using the tailwind to divert to RIC and drove the rest of the way.
I look at the winds a fair amount before a longer flight. At the lower altitudes, <10k, a 25-30 kt swing is a big deal. Even if not going flying I may look & have appreciation for that 50 kt wind above blowing a certain direction.
218 kts over southern Japan headed to Shanghai. Didn’t think we’d ever get there. But the return went pretty quick!
I'm just imagining a 172 up there (not that it could get up there), going -118 knots backwards groundspeed.
256 kts! Only was lucky, a tailwind. Got a flip phone pic somewhere... Md-88 somewhere middle of the US. High 20’s? Was a brutal winter. Many transcontinental flights had to stop for gas going the other way. Probably 10 or more years ago.
