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Old 26th Apr 2010, 12:05
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john_tullamarine
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Some points to note.

(a) Airbus' optimised takeoff is similar in philosophy to Boeing's overspeed V2 takeoff

(b) minV2 schedule generally will give minimum runway distances. However, the climb gradient capability is nowhere near maximum. If you don't have any spare runway distance available, then that's the end of it and you're stuck with whatever RTOW you get from the analysis.

(c) the climb gradient capability graph is a bit like an upturned teacup .. as you increase speed a bit, the climb gradient improves. As the speed increases the rate of climb improvement falls off and somewhere around 20-30 kts is about as far as it is worth going.

(d) if you have some spare runway distance you can look at increasing the speeds to take advantage of the better climb gradient capability. This probably won't be of any use if you have close in critical obstacles (due to the extended TODR) but usually gives a better RTOW for nil or distant obstacles.

As always, one needs to look at ALL the relevant takeoff limits to end up with whatever speed schedule gives the best (optimised) RTOW.

Balanced Field Lengths were important decades ago when the calculations had to be done by hand .. the BFL calculations were somewhat simplified, quicker to do and, for most cases, gave adequate RTOW without going to the trouble of optimising for the last kilo. With the advent of cheap computing power, generally there is no reason not to optimise to your heart's content rather than just take the easy way out.

Caveat, some of the older aircraft AFMs only gave the option of BFL so there was no optimising option.
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