VC10 question

… and if you look at the other instruments, you will see it has a healthy rate of descent, at a height of nearly FL390, with lots of engine power applied. Lots of slippery jets can go fast in a powered descent. A friend of mine, in similar circumstances, went supersonic in a Trident 1 during a familiarisation flight.

Hi All,

My Father was on one of the first air tests/famils when the ‘Ten’ came to Brize Norton during the early 1960’s, he took this photo in the cockpit during his flight, if you look closely at the Mach meter, above the co-pilots left shoulder, you can just see the needle creeping over Mach 0.9![ATTACH=CONFIG]228100[/ATTACH]

Martyn

GYD

Great photo Martyn! From the BOAC manuals, Mmo for the VC10 was initially 0,886 but was later reduced to 0,866. Mne could have been somewhere around 0,9 then.

As I understand it today the fastest airliner though technically not in airline service
is Air Force One ???

Possibly true since its payload is usually hot air, it provides extra lift!

Hi All,

My Father was on one of the first air tests/famils when the ‘Ten’ came to Brize Norton during the early 1960’s, he took this photo in the cockpit during his flight, if you look closely at the Mach meter, above the co-pilots left shoulder, you can just see the needle creeping over Mach 0.9![ATTACH=CONFIG]228100[/ATTACH]

Martyn

GYD

As I understand it today the fastest airliner though technically not in airline service
is Air Force One ???

Mike E

When I was working in Kenya in the 70s, I well remember talking to one of the East African pilots (whose name I had better not mention) and he was the acceptance pilot for the last of the East African Airways aircraft. Apparently he and the Vickers pilot decided to “see what she’ll do” and had a very swift run down the South coast during which they allegedly saw Mach 1.01 in a shallow dive. I have no reason to doubt his word as he was just the sort of chap to try it.

Convair 990 Coronado was the second fastest. Convairs last roll of the dice, only 30 odd aircraft were produced.

LINK – http://www.dc-8jet.com/0-dc8-sst-flight.htm
I always thought the Convair 880/990 were the fastest subsonic airliners, but were Gas Guzzlers.

IIRC I was told whilst on 101 sqn that the VC10 was the fastest airliner in terms of cruise speed wrt mach number of 0.85. What the Vne of the VC10 or Convair was I don’t know.

Are we talking about Mach number, indicated airspeed, true airspeed or ground speed? There is no clear maximum as you need to define which speeds you’re comparing first. Have a look at this article for the official records held by the VC10: http://www.vc10.net/Memories/Recordsetting.html

Maximum recorded speed for the VC10 is M0,96 and that was during this incident: http://www.vc10.net/History/incidents_and_accidents.html#G-ASIX%20The%20Andes%20incident

There may have been occasions where it went faster, but that won’t be recorded anywhere and is therefore impossible to prove.

Yup, there was also rumours a VC10 broke the sound barrier too…

defining fastest, im not sure………..It was a comment on a programme titled “inside Brise Norton” and as the control tower crew watched the final flypast of three VC10’s he mentioned that ecxept the concorde era, the dc was the fastest commercial airliner in service….

If I remember correctly, there was an article once in Flight about a reporters trip in an RAF VC10 where he reported that at one point the mach meter rose to “an interesting” 0.97. I guess such speeds were not uncommon, but I don’t know.

Regarding the thread itself, it might be useful to first define “fastest”.

A DC-8 broke the sound barrier!

There seem to be a few contenders for the title of second fastest. I know that when by Brother in Law was at Monarch,
he reckoned their 707-720 took the Silver medal.

Convair 990 621 mph, VC10 580mph according to wiki. But also;

The performance of the VC10 was such that it achieved the fastest London to New York crossing of the Atlantic by a jet airliner, a record still held to date for a sub-sonic airliner; only the supersonic Concorde was faster

I was always under the impression that the Convair CV990 was the fastest.