Thanks for the insight of tanker ops, a different animal to airline flying.
As regards piston engine operations, on every piston type with VP prop I have flown, it is definitely not recommended to take off and then climb to cruise altitude at max RPM. Usual recommendation is to reduce power and RPM to a recommended 'climb power' usually a few inches and 2/300 RPM, at 1000ft or so agl. Noise and engine life factors again.
I suppose a military operation is not so constrained by cost and economy, and I expect the heavy old Tutor does not have a sparkling performance in climb and cruise at anything less than max continuous power.
Having flown the IO-540 250HP version, that's a performer!
Last edited by cessnapete; 18th Jun 2015 at 13:16.