If you want to go by top speeds, for the 787 (entered service 2011) it's Mach 0.9, for the A-350 (2015) it's 0.89, while for the 707-120 (1958) it's Mach 0.91. The 747 (1970) can go Mach 0.94.
Modern jets are built to fly slightly slower than early jetliners, both in normal operation and at top speed. The reason is fuel economy, but the difference is real.
You're saying planes have a top speed faster than their cruise speed; I'm saying it doesn't matter which of the two metrics you compare on, older jets are faster on both.
A specific Mach number is what airliner airframes are designed to fly at; it's absolutely the correct unit to talk about in this context. If airplane A is designed to cruise at 0.94 mach, it is faster than airplane B that cruises at 0.89 mach.
I don't understand the need for all the smoke and din in this argument thread. Old passenger jets flew a little faster than modern ones and that's okay!
They're not faster in any absolute sense, look at the wing sweep angle of new vs old jets or the fact that early low bypass ratio jets have a much higher exhaust velocity, the old jets are marginally faster by every metric.
Modern airplanes can exceed their cruising speed in a relative sense but older planes have a higher absolute maximum speed, as well as cruising speed.
Why is everyone trying to ackshewally this? The stat's are publicly available. Aircraft are optimized for a particular speed range and that impacts the designed cruising speed as well as Vs and VNE.
