Something odd going on with Bear Force One (Bruins Charter) | HFBoards - NHL Message Board and Forum for National Hockey League
Toggle sidebar

Something odd going on with Bear Force One (Bruins Charter)

Status
Not open for further replies.
Mechanical issue or medical (on plane, or possibly family at home since it's a charter) would be the two categories that come to my mind. Hopefully it's something silly like "oops, I forgot to fill the tank all the way because we were going to California, not New York".
 
I work in aviation, so I apologize for my nerd-ing out on this stuff.

Range for a Boeing 737-400 is 2,370 miles, and range as the crow flies from Bedford to San Jose is 2,673 miles. Rarely are pilots afforded the opportunity to fly in a straight-line, though, depending on wind conditions, storms, and traffic across very busy North American skies. Flying into a headwind means you need to leave your engines at a slightly higher setting to keep your airspeed up, thus, there's going to be a higher burn rate for your fuel, thus, your aircraft's range will decrease.

So in layman's terms, pilots ran into a head wind that they more than likely planned for before the flight took off. More than likely a scheduled fuel stop in Omaha.

No worries here.
 
Last edited:
617Marine said:
I work in aviation, so I apologize for my nerd-ing out on this stuff.

Range for a Boeing 737-400 is 2,059 nautical miles, and range as the crow flies from Bedford to San Jose is 2,322nm. Rarely are pilots afforded the opportunity to fly in a straight-line, though, depending on wind conditions, storms, and traffic across very busy North American skies. Winds aloft at altitude were 50 miles and hour, and the plane was chugging along at around 400 knots. Flying into a headwind means you need to leave your engines at a slightly higher setting, thus, there's going to be a higher burn rate for your fuel, thus, your aircraft's range will decrease. So in layman's terms, pilots ran into a head wind that they more than likely planned for before the flight took off. No worries here.
Click to expand...

Forgive, but I'm not an aviation nerd, so I basically read your last sentence. :) Hope you're right. The plane is safely on the ground, which is the important thing.
 
617Marine said:
I work in aviation, so I apologize for my nerd-ing out on this stuff.

Range for a Boeing 737-400 is 2,059 nautical miles, and range as the crow flies from Bedford to San Jose is 2,322nm. Rarely are pilots afforded the opportunity to fly in a straight-line, though, depending on wind conditions, storms, and traffic across very busy North American skies. Winds aloft at altitude were 50 mph and directly out of the west (260 degrees if there's another nerd reading this), and the plane was chugging along at around 400 knots (approx. 460 mph). Flying into a headwind means you need to leave your engines at a slightly higher setting to keep your airspeed up if you want to get there in a reasonable time), thus, there's going to be a higher burn rate for your fuel, thus, your aircraft's range will decrease. So in layman's terms, pilots ran into a head wind that they more than likely planned for before the flight took off. Stop in Omaha is a technical stop (for fuel), and a pretty sweet spot to stretch the legs and grab some steaks (sarcasm). No worries here.
Click to expand...

Well done, I did not understand a lot of it, but a fuel stop makes sense.

It is almost right in the middle from Massachusetts to California.
 
GordonHowe said:
Forgive, but I'm not an aviation nerd, so I basically read your last sentence. :) Hope you're right. The plane is safely on the ground, which is the important thing.
Click to expand...

VanIsle said:
Well done, I did not understand a lot of it, but a fuel stop makes sense.

It is almost right in the middle from Massachusetts to California.
Click to expand...

Haha, no worries guys. I sometimes go high-and-right with this stuff, so to make it simple:

Not enough fuel in the tank for the road-trip, so Dad had to pull over and grab some gas.

Go Bruins.
 
mikelvl said:
Hope everything is ok. But, just curious, why were you checking their flight?
Click to expand...

I check from time to time just for curiosity. They didn't have a morning skate today which they usually do before heading to Bedford and saw that they had a 9 AM departure.
 
Glad to hear it's (hopefully) a fuel thing. I don't remember them stopping on last year's CA trip, but it's something I could have easily forgotten, or not even bothered to check.

And if you want to follow future Bear Force One flights, they basically go sequentially by number, and they restart at 2101 each year. So if you go one up from this flight, you'll see last year's flight plan, which will soon turn into the SJS-ANA flight plan.
 
I'm no aviation expert but I can't believe that that would be a re-fuel stop. No way. I used to live in LA back 20 years ago and used to fly back and forth from NY non stop and never had to land to refuel.
 
617Marine said:
I work in aviation, so I apologize for my nerd-ing out on this stuff.

Range for a Boeing 737-400 is 2,370 miles, and range as the crow flies from Bedford to San Jose is 2,673 miles. Rarely are pilots afforded the opportunity to fly in a straight-line, though, depending on wind conditions, storms, and traffic across very busy North American skies. Flying into a headwind means you need to leave your engines at a slightly higher setting to keep your airspeed up, thus, there's going to be a higher burn rate for your fuel, thus, your aircraft's range will decrease.

So in layman's terms, pilots ran into a head wind that they more than likely planned for before the flight took off. More than likely a scheduled fuel stop in Omaha.

No worries here.
Click to expand...

If we're going by this logic, there's a massive cold front pushing through the Rockies at the moment, We currently have very heavy wind gusts and should go from 70's today to 50's and 30's this week.

Makes sense that they'd want to land for more fuel.
 
BklyNBruiN said:
I'm no aviation expert but I can't believe that that would be a re-fuel stop. No way. I used to live in LA back 20 years ago and used to fly back and forth from NY non stop and never had to land to refuel.
Click to expand...

Different aircraft have different ranges.

This flight had to divert to Vegas 4 days ago because of fuel. Happens more often than you think.
http://flightaware.com/live/flight/VRD357/history/20160310/2359Z/KBOS/KLAS

Bad Puck Bounce said:
If we're going by this logic, there's a massive cold front pushing through the Rockies at the moment, We currently have very heavy wind gusts and should go from 70's today to 50's and 30's this week.

Makes sense that they'd want to land for more fuel.
Click to expand...

More than likely an attributing factor. A few weeks ago there was a front over the North Atlantic that was helping the Atlantic crossings make record time.

Again, sorry for the nerd-ery. Everyone has their passion in life. Mine's hockey and Aviation.
 
Last edited:
Donnie Shulzhoffer said:
A whole friggin thread for a pit stop. It is definitely Monday.
Click to expand...

Case-of-the-Mondays-Pic.png
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Users who are viewing this thread

Total: 1 (members: 0, guests: 1)

Latest posts

Ad

Ad

Top Bottom