Fair enough Kieth. Point taken. I guess I was approaching the thread from a practical airline point of view.
The reality for the aircraft I fly ( 737-800) is that max endurance is a lower speed than Vmd which is lower than Max range up to the aircrafts service ceiling.
Practically what this means is that pilots of the 737-800 need to be very aware of their altitude if thinking about slowing to max endurance for holding or an ATC slow down because it is going to put them on the back of the curve and they will be speed unstable. This may be fine if they have thought about the conditions and how they will manoeuvre etc, but in some circumstances it is not a good idea as the aircraft will be thrust limited and may not be able to claw back any deviations.
Cheers.
Ps, I'm always ready to be corrected and learn something so would be appreciative of any corrections to the above statement.
Last edited by framer; 12th Jun 2013 at 23:30.