Party pooper here.
You know when fast food workers post images of things like stepping bare footed onto a bowl of salad?
To me, this is the equivalent for pilots. Safety, checklists and routines, take time. Don’t go posting on social media that your are competing in this space.
Ps: the post in question is arguably not too bad. But, if this is “a thing”, then I’d suggest to be careful to be associated with it.
Safety, checklists and routines, take time.
Walkarounds and such are done before takeoff, and you aren’t taking off early, especially not in an airliner. In-flight checklists don’t take more or less time, since the airliner is going whether you want it or not, and the pilot does not / can not just set the throttle for a faster speed. It’s fine.
There are two major factors influencing travel time on an airliner, neither of them have anything to do with doing stuff faster with less attention to safety. They are airport organisation and prevailing winds.
If your departure/destination is competent and there are less complications from overworked ATC or other planes being late on arrival/departure, you’re most likely fine.
The big thing though is wind. A head/tailwind can affect your ground speed to a degree of +/- 30% in extreme cases, so these are harmless. It’s not even up to the pilot “going faster”. There are similar posts and even articles about airliners “breaking the sound barrier”, eg. having a larger ground speed than the speed of sound in static air on the ground.
I mean, the pilot can literally set the throttle for more speed? Isn’t that the whole function of it? “Engine go more/less brrr?”
(I am aware of autothrottle and all that, but iirc pilots still have a lot of leeway regarding economy/speed/…)
I’m sure the airlines want those throttles set to the most fuel efficient setting that gets the plane there safely and on time. Fuel is expensive.
As the other response noted, arriving early can lead to headaches, but for other reasons - for example, slots at the gates are timed, so arriving before the previous plane departs won’t work well. Of course this doesn’t always apply, sometimes the gate is just sitting empty already.
Also, airlines have padded their schedules for years to give themselves some leeway in case of unexpected delays in taking off, landing, minor issues with the plane, etc. I assume this is a relatively small amount, like 5 or 10 minutes, but I really don’t know. But it does mean the flight will show up early frequently when things are normal.
I’m no aerospace doctor or nothin, but I’d think the pilot would be expected to stay on a very strict schedule. If they arrived at the intended airport minutes ahead of schedule they might have trouble landing when another scheduled flight is trying to land or have to awkwardly circle the runway until there is clearance.
Stretch goal: Arrive before takeoff.
Happens everyday thanks to time zones.
Journey before destination
Concorde has entered the chat.
Phileas Fogg has entered the chat.
Boeing is doing the low% speedrun where you try to get to your destination with the least aircraft parts.
At this point arriving at the airport is optional.
Checks out. I always try to fly Delta when possible. Had the least amount of delays from them.
A TOS shows that if you do an out of bounds glitch you can trigger the loading zone under ground because they stretch to the bottom of the sky box.
<Pilots start looking for glitches>
Hmm, after reading my contract carefully, there’s nothing in there that explicitly says I actually have to wait for the passengers and baggage to be loaded before taking off…
[halfway through the flight] “Dang, I can’t make this time. Going to reset”
Just type in the 7500 cheatcode and you can take shortcuts through military airspace.
They do. And it can end like this.
Block time (airlines calculate it differently) was traditionally viewed from “block to block”, the time the wheel chocks were removed for the aircraft to move under its own power for departure to the time the wheel chocks were put back under the wheels at destination. Now it just means what the airline thinks the flight time will be for scheduling purposes.
As a passenger, this is what you see when your app tells you the flight time. It includes taxi out and taxi in.
Delay-prone flights are often over blocked, so a perfectly delay-free flight (push, taxi, takeoff, fly, land, taxi in, park) that takes say an hour and a half total might me blocked for 1:50 because historically one of the airports might be busy at that time an they know there will be a long taxi, gate holds, whatever.
So sometimes fate smiles on everyone and you get to leave early, miss whatever built in delays there might be planned, ATC gives you a couple shortcuts, a favorable wind, and bam, you’re in 30 minutes early.
So not really a speed run, just lots of luck.
Nice explanation, thanks.
I was thinking that maybe the company needed that plane somewhere quickly and just said screw it to fuel efficiency.
The RNG gods giveth and the RNG gods take away.
oh like a flipped bit isn’t also lots of luck
Freebird intensifys
In before someone posts the Aspen 20 Speedcheck copypasta
Is doing anything fast or being happy about anything going smoothly really considered a speedrun now?
Don’t get me wrong. If Summoning salt posts a two hour long video about the history and optimization of Delta Airlines flight 545 between LGA and ATL, I’m watching that shit.
JFK to LAX, any % of passengers.
By any % of passengers, You mean seats filled, or do You mean arrive with a different amount that You took off with?
Yes.
Used to lead big hikes. We had an “80% return rate is good”. Partial bodies counted.
Yes, this was a joke for attendees.
If it was any% of plane, there are some creative launching strategies we could explore.
And landing
Boeing has entered the chat
Does the run end when you touch the ground, or do you have to actually make it to the gate?
With the new gateless skip it’s basically the same exact time. You clip right into the gate
Guys, I think I know what happened to that plane in SK…
Literally just gun it towards the landing strip at full speed to save one framerule
Ladies and gentelmen this is your pilot speaking, I’ve gone ahead and put the seat belt lights back on because Marlons a fucking showoff and thinks he so great. Buckle up and hold tight.
No no no, that’s only 52 minutes early. He left 2 minutes before the scheduled start time. Quit trying to boost your stats, man!
Me farming gold 10 seconds before the match ends to look good on the stats screen:
Southwest Airlines pays their pilots a bonus for every minute they block in early.
Guess who has a reputation for bugging ATC for shortcuts and taxiing really fast.
Aha, I knew it! Flight attendants get paid per ‘flight’ hour and the pilots get bonuses to reduce the amount of time the attendants are paid for. That’s fucked up
Pay is usually per flight hour, but also paid on a block-or-better basis. The minimum pay for completing a leg is the scheduled time, but if there are delays, then actual time from parking brake to parking brake is paid
Oh, that’s better than I assumed
parking brake
This a fwd model? Get me some McDonald’s trays, I’m gonna show atc a cool trick
Spirit?
