Can a plane outrun the sun?

[merrimac]

Netflix should buy the rights of "Missie Aarde" -- "Mission Earth" and dub/subtitle it.

Dutch series, think "the Office" set in space. The storyline is it is 2063, the whole earth has succumbed to rising water levels except the Netherlands, where people have put up 100 m dykes, but they are getting itchy so they send out a space ship to find a new home for humanity. Talk about silly!!! Oh and of course life just goes on in the spaceship, with petty things.

[merrimac]

For instance the storyline of S1E2: Axel is upset, because someone has stolen his piece of Brie (French cheese) and demands an investigation to find the thief.

[S/V Illusion]

Originally Posted by Elie

You had the feeling to beat the sun, only because you took advantage of the civil time and the date line to arrive sooner then departed. You never beat the sun even if you had the feeling that you went faster then the sun around the earth. .

Let me put it in different terms - we left Sydney in daylight flying west to London and arrived in daylight without ever having anything but sunshine out the window of the plane. The terminator lagged behind the plane.

[CyKlop]

You've hit it on the head here. The question is not ground speed, but angular speed - how many degrees of longitude one covers per unit of time. If you can cover 360 degrees of longitude in 24 hours, you can "keep up with" the sun. So... pick a latitude where the line of latitude is of length = 24 * your ground speed and there you go. Probably want to be a little further north to give yourself a bit of a safety margin.

[David Mathis]

Just use sunscreen, maybe spf 99, and head to the beach. And do your sailing at night.

[Briggers]

Not quite the same thing but Jeremy Clarkson (Top Gear) tried to race the sun in a car. I think it was either a Bentley Continental or a Jaguar XJ - probably the latter.
He started on the most westerly. Point of mainland UK, to the most easterly point, somewhere in Suffolk.. He left at sunset and drove the 473 miles and arrived just east of Ipswich and watch the new day sun as it rose above the horizon.
I can’t recall the time of year but I am guessing it was the summer solciste.

[LargeMarge]

Is it a Pilsner?
Something hoppier?

[Niall leslie]

Peter Twiss, the RAF pilot, first achieved that in 1956 in the UK as described in his book Faster Than the Sun when he set the official record at 1,822 KPH.
Cheers,
Niall.

[Richv]

Originally Posted by phiggins

I am watching a really good Netflix series called "Into The Night". Its about a group of people in Belgium that heard that the sun had gone crazy and as it moves across the earth it kills every living thing. It started in New York and was moving around the world. The people in Belgium heard about it and got on a commercial jet airliner and are travelling west trying to outrun the sun.

Now the question is can they outrun the sun?

Fact 1: at the equator the earth is turning at about 1000 mph.
Fact 2: A commercial airline travels at about 650 mph.

But their assumption is at a higher latitude they can outrun it.

Do you think they can survive?

Sounds like somebody plagiarized Larry Niven's "inconstant Moon." As several other here have noted, go far enough North and you could walk it. In fact, go far enough North, and you could walk from the dawn line to the dusk line, sleep for several hours, then pick up your pack. Lather, rinse, repeat.

[Lightwave99]

Okay, not to sound too serious or I guess "grouchy," but the sun is a GOOD THING. Without it, the earth and every thing on it would die. It is a silly and disturbing premise. Love the Sun! Take off the sunglasses!

[SailOar]

Originally Posted by Briggers

Not quite the same thing but Jeremy Clarkson (Top Gear) tried to race the sun in a car. I think it was either a Bentley Continental or a Jaguar XJ - probably the latter.
He started on the most westerly. Point of mainland UK, to the most easterly point, somewhere in Suffolk.. He left at sunset and drove the 473 miles and arrived just east of Ipswich and watch the new day sun as it rose above the horizon.
I can’t recall the time of year but I am guessing it was the summer solciste.

Trying that stunt at the summer solstice would give Clarkson the least amount of time (the shortest night). Doing it at the winter solstice would give him the most amount of time (the longest night).

[Briggers]

So it would SaiOar, too much vino me thinks ��

[Richv]

Originally Posted by Lightwave99

Okay, not to sound too serious or I guess "grouchy," but the sun is a GOOD THING. Without it, the earth and every thing on it would die. It is a silly and disturbing premise. Love the Sun! Take off the sunglasses!

Yes; the sun is great. Our very own gravitationally-confined hydrogen fusion reactor which has operated for about 4.6 billion years, and will probably continue to operate for another 5 billion years at the current rate. The Larry Niven story is based on the fact that suns similar to ours sometimes put out vastly-increased energy for short periods. Perhaps they are impacted by massive objects, or maybe a starquake causes a huge increase in core density. Thus, there is a statistical likelihood this could happen to our own sun. As Terry Pratchett once said it: "Events eventuate."

[captlloyd]

Originally Posted by a64pilot

So why not just go down in a cave or mine?

No need to pick the series apart, I have already got that covered. Those big jets do need some maintenance from time to time. By the way, everyone could just move to Ohio and the Great Lakes cloud cover, the damn sun never shines here !

[hamburking]

Originally Posted by a64pilot

So why not just go down in a cave or mine?

Hey, spoiler alert! That's season 2!