Notes:"Severe clear VFR with Wicked tailwinds." Level flight, battling the unyielding updrafts.
Name:Jack Showers
Airline:Private
Date:03 February 2009
Notes:266 knots ground speed sustained for 13 minutes or so with excursions up to the low 280's.
I was on the way to a Beechcraft owners' function (BPPP) in Lakeland, FL from Lafayette, LA, at 15,000; straight, level and smooth.
These best ground speeds were from a straight downwind leg on a day after a cold front came raging through the Deep South.
The airplane is a stock, unmodified 1979 B55 Baron with IO-470L's. Photos of the steam gauges were taken about a half hour earlier on a more easterly heading and show the engine settings and indicated airspeed for the entire flight.
Name:
Airline:
Date:26 April 2014
Notes:Level into the Washington DC area. Wicked tailwinds from the west created massive turbulence on the eastern side of the mountains into Virginia.
Name:Richard K. Schmidt
Airline:Private
Date:29 December 2008
Notes:N7821R is my 1969 B-55 Baron with IO-470L's, level flight on top at 7000' MSL eastbound over Waukesha, WI (KUES), just northwest of Milwaukee.
Perfectly smooth ride on top, but quite turbulent underneath with surface gusts to 40 knots in the area. Exceptional tailwind this low, almost 70 knots.