Originally Posted by CabinMaster
But with a jet, the sooner you gain altitude, the better for overall performance.
Exactly. And the best rate of climb is obtained at a certain lift-coefficient (1). That means that the theoretical optimum speed for climb varies approximately as the square root of weight. However, for practical reasons many aircraft use a schedule of constant speeds.
regards,
HN39
(1) See the parallel thread "Max Endurance, Max Range ..."