My point about CRM is simply that every time an F/o comes along and says "well I was flying with Capt Kirk and he said the FMC figures are guesses/rubbish/tool/just a guide" and guess what its the same names that keep cropping up, anyway enough drift
And you know what? I have the exact same problem! When I ask an F/O to request FL390, I have to go into a long explanation why it isn't necessary to ALWAYS have max alt plus 1000', 600' or at the very least 400', before initiating a climb, and explain that Capt Lnida's personal limits have nothing to do with Boeing procedures.
Except for the barber pole and the minimum speed (which is taken from air data), Capt "Kirk" is right (isn't Kirk always right by the way?
). Everything the FMC puts out are best guesses. You see my margin as 9 knots. I see my margin (for the VERY worst case) as 203 -267 = 64 knots (of course fluid with the load factor induced on the aircraft by turbulence).
With "VERY worst case, I am talking about the extremely unlikely event (that will happen 2 times in a career), where due to a strong sheer I end up in deep in the yellow and unable to pull out. To clarify, I never allow the speed to get into the yellow band.
But those few times in a career where it might happen: I will rather say "xxx, descending, unable to maintain altitude, call you leveling off".
...and operate the rest of my thousands of flights efficiently.
I assume you agree that the minimum maneuver speed yellow band, isn't aerodynamically dangerous per se, but when going in there it's just a reduction of your margins? I also assume, that your real concern is rather lack of sufficient thrust? I also assume (given the description of your ops) that you have 26k or 27k engines. Those factors together Boeing addresses with the following:
FCTM:
On airplanes with higher thrust engines, the altitude selection is most likely limited by maneuver margin to initial buffet.
You are founding your personal limits by ONE bad experience. Which wasn't even that bad: You just descended and regained speed and probably climbed back up a little bit later? Sure, you had to take a break from reading your newspaper and your adrenalin level might increased a bit, but was this a near disaster?
It's a bit like someone experiencing a decompression refusing to fly above FL100 again, because he never want to have to do another emergency descend.
