A little bit of airmanship would help here. Look at the departure plate, look at the stop alts and ask why. There are four stacks round Heathrow, with traffic doing continuous descent approaches. You know very well that you’re rarely going to get anything above 6000 ft in the first four minutes unless it’s very quiet. Hence after thrust reduction, go to VS 1500fpm. You reduce noise, fuel burn, power changes, and I bet you you’ll enjoy continuous reclearances. You’ll also avoid scaring Captain Nigel in his –400 going round and round at BNN as his TCAS shouts ‘TRAFFIC’.
Once you get about 40nm away from London and clear of the stacks you can open it out a bit. Think about the airspace you’re in and its construction, think of your dynamic profile in relation to other traffic and how you can fit in.
Be a pilot and an airman.
