My guess is that you're getting retransmissions because of dropped frames, not because there's some huge buffer in the sky.

Indicated airspeed 280kts, ground speed 470kts, FL410, the packets are trying to catch up…

I like "huge buffer in the sky".

That's where I imagine all my deleted data goes.

we're all just riding the ring buffer of samsara, maaan

There’s one huge buffer in the sky!

The huge buffers are at the two endpoints (:->