Questions, questions.....
"an overspeed condition is only a few knots ahead of cruise speed?"
I'm not an airline pilot, but I gather the airline SOP is that the calculated cruise altitude allows something like a 1.2 or 1.3 G boundary boundary from high and low speed buffet. So a "few" knots shouldn't happen, in normal flight. If you have got less than this, they'd need to request descent to a lower altitude, giving a higher margin due to the denser air. Depending on airspace rules, that could be as low as 1000 feet.
Descending, or flying, at the recommended turbulence pentration speed (normally given as a mach at high altitudes) should give you the best margins, until the margins are re achieved.
Use that math background of yours, assume 35,000 feet, and -57 deg C, a hypothetical aircraft suddenly flies into this "bubble of warmer air", and the mach suddenly jumps from .83 to .78
How much did the temperature rise?
Last edited by hawk37; 14th June 2009 at 11:33.