How is it that a flight to Washington from Savannah is 2h while a flight to New York from Savannah is 2.5h, is the 300mile distance condensed into 30m ?

Question

I don’t know much about planes or physics, maybe someone smarter can help.

In: 1

Answer 1

Much of the time of a typical flight is the time it takes to ascend to cruising altitude and achieve top speed. So, you can’t just look at average speed from takeoff to landing, but you must consider the average speed once the plane hits top speed. It’s kind of like driving on some slow country roads, to reach the interstate. Once you reach the interstate, you’re traveling about a mile a minute, so you cover distance more quickly. So, let’s say you travel across 5 miles of country roads, then 5 miles of interstate, and it takes you 20 minutes to get to your destination. If you travel across the same 5 miles of country roads, but then you travel 15 miles on the interstate, then you have traveled twice the distance. But, it won’t take you twice as long to get there, because you spent more time traveling at higher speeds on the interstate.

And, of course, there are other factors to consider, such as wind currents, which vary from one area of the country to another–you fly faster moving with the wind than you do against it.