"Byker" <byker@do~rag.net> wrote in
news:atmdnflHdvmgMqDInZ2dnUU7-ImdnZ2d@earthlink.com:
> The average Southwest flight only travels 653 miles for an average of
> one hour and 55 minutes
>
> Fortunately Airbus and Boeing have both remembered how important speed
> is and this is reflected in their latest models where .85 Mach seems to
> be the minimum standard cruise speed.
>
> A lot better than the 'bad old days' of the 737 'Classic' 300, 400 and
> 500 series which crawled along at an agonizing .74 Mach, with their
> accompanying terrible ride in turbulence a long flight into a headwind
> was like cruel and unusual punishment.
>
> That's an interesting datapoint.
>
> I speculate here, but perhaps back in the day the "senior" models (707,
> 747, DC-8) got the more refined "cruise wing", while "junior" models
> like the 737 Jurassic were seen to only do rather short flights where
> higher mach numbers were not seen as important. And so the wing was
> optimized more for shorter runways and less for cruise speeds. And then
> the 737 started doing 4+ hour flights. Aaaarrrgh...
>
> Again, just a thought I'm having. No hard data to support it.
>
> Thankfully nowadays supercritical wing profiles and so forth ensure you
> can get both M0.85 and decent field performance. A far cry from those
> gorgeous, sharp 60s wings like on the DC-8, but it works.
The Convair 880 cruised at .89 Mach and the 990 a little faster, but they
could not compete with Douglas and Boeing.
--
Andrew Chaplin
SIT MIHI GLADIUS SICUT SANCTO MARTINO
(If you're going to e-mail me, you'll have to get "yourfinger." out.)
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