Pretty much every airliner made develops nicknames for any variety of reasons. The all too common Boeing 737? It’s known as FLUF…”fat little ugly” and you can figure the rest out. The majestic Boeing 747? The Queen of the Skies and the Humpback. The Airbus A380 double-decker? The Flying Forehead. Yeah, most of these nicknames come from pilots, crew and ground maintenance who have to deal with these machines day in and day out, those who learn each aircraft’s quirks and problems. In the case of the Boeing 787 “Dreamliner”, it’s known as “Firebird”, due to the problems with the lithium-ion batteries. Not exactly a charming nickname, but on February 18th, 2019, Virgin Atlantic Flight 8 came closer to being compared to the hot-rod Pontiac than ever thanks to one little footnote in the flight plan: while traversing across the upper Midwest on it’s Los Angeles-London flight, it rode the jet stream to a documented 801 MPH ground speed. For those keeping track, that would be Mach 1 +34 MPH.

No, the Dreamliner is not rated for supersonic. Not even close. But the truth lies in the jet stream. The meteorological term that usually means it’s gonna rain! is often the reason why west-to-east flights show up a few minutes early to their final destination on good days. Think of it as a river of air…when the jet stream is flowing, a plane can hop in and the tailwind shoves the craft along. So while the 787 was over the sound barrier on the ground, the aircraft itself was only feeling the strain of about 560 miles an hour, it’s normal cruising speed. The difference is that the Dreamliner was riding a jet stream that was recorded at 231 miles an hour, so while passengers dozed off or watched movies, radar controllers in Pennsylvania were certainly getting an eyeful of a Boeing hauling major ass across the state. In fact, unless the pilots said anything during the flight, the only way anyone would’ve known what was going on would’ve been when the plane landed at Heathrow nearly an hour early.