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Old 16th Oct 2009, 17:04
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Northbeach
 
Join Date: Aug 2008
Location: North America
Age: 64
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speeding up................not so fast.

Tb10er,

When you embark on a journey with your automobile you have a very wide range of speeds available to you. The longer the distance the greater the opportunity to arrive sooner; you could drive at 50 km/hr or 100 km/hr. The latter could cut your time in half. Not so with transport jets, at higher altitudes and heavier weights the airspeeds available to us are much more limited. Fly too slow and we approach stalling speed, fly too fast and we approach maximum certified speed, and the difference between the two is often not very much. We simply do not have as wide a range of speeds to choose from as you do driving your automobile on the autobahn/freeway.

Once we are airborne a simple delay vector by ATC, a slower speed assignment due to traffic ahead of us, or added time incurred while navigating away from enroute storms will negate virtually any advantage gained by having flown a few knots faster. The best way to ensure an on time or early arrival is to get off the gate and into the air as expeditiously as possible.

For more information Google aviation+coffin corner.

Respectfully,
Northbeach is offline