More fuel for climb or low altitude cruise in a jet ?
Does a jet generally use more fuel in the climb, or if cruising at at low altitude ?
E.g. For a short flight, i.e. 100 nm, what altitude be chosen?
If low-alt cruise is more expensive than climb, I guess the plan would be to "zoom" up to FL240 or so and then glide down ?
If the fuel burn is less for a cruise of ~300 kts at ~11,000 (North America), ~6,000 (Europe ???) than climbing, then I suppose you'd climb to minimum "above 250 kts" altitude ?
I have the book "Fly The Wing" by Jim Webb. He mentions the rule-of-thumb of multiplying the distance by 100, e.g. 10,000 for 100 mile flight, but he doesn't explain where that number comes from.
Mike