We used to use a fixed climb speed, (210kts IAS) variation for head/tail seems a bit too much like hard work
It was pretty close to turb air speed as well. Generally the efficency of higher levels outweighs the time saving of increased IAS, except on friday night trying to get in before the pub shuts when all bets are off and METO all the way home!
Step climb in turboprops is IMHO generally a waste of time. Because the fuel burn is so low on shorter sectors the weight change is so little that you could climb straight up to optimum level anyway. I have used it but only on long sectors (5 hours plus)
cant think of any refrences of the top of my head, but you could always read "handling the big jets" backwards!
