to MasterGreen
MasterGreen
quote
"Have you no understanding of jet performance at all?
Whatever - your companies' loss I guess for not teaching you... "
MG
Well... that's our company operational philosophy:
There is an optimum altitude to fly a plane at based on its weight.
As the weight of a plane changes, so does its optimum altitude.Therefore as fuel burns during cruise, the optimum altitude changes. In addition, as fuel burns off, the airplanes's tendency is to climb.
Typically airlines are not allowed to do a climbing cruise i.e. allow the airplane to climb as fuel burns off. Rather they must fly at specified altitudes. For this reason a step climb is used.
A step climb starts at an altitude that is above optimum altitude (typically 200 feet above optimum altitude) and stays at that altitude until it is a given amount under the optimum altitude (again, typically 2000 feet)
At this point, the airplane will climb and be above optimum altitude again.The typical climb is 4000 feet to again be 2000 feet above optimum.
This method keeps planes at specified altitudes yet lets planes climb in increments to save fuel.
By the way, thanks for your information about the site.