Babemagnet

You seem to be somewhat confused? Who has changeg their SOPs, MON haven't for sure. When we have have low CIs the operating speeds are lower therby saving fuel. QED!

Your arguement about doing as others do falls down very quickly. If everybody else jumps off a cliff, do I - NO!

Also operating efficiently is not selfish just professional!


PPrune Radar
Absolutely spot on.

Blindly following the CI (Airbus) is not in Mon's best interest MANAGP, pre-planning,by looking at and adjusting cruise and descent speeds can reduce flt times without incurring any penalty on the fuel used. Their will be occasions when this does not always work, but at any time the cruise reduces .76 and is carried into the descent, you can be sure that it does. As we have been informed 2-3 mins off any flt, without fuel penalty does itself lead to significant savings itself.

Page 59 of 'Getting to Grips with Fuel Economy' shows that a descent from FL350 in a A320 is 50kg more efficient @240kts than @ 300kt, you correctly state that it will take longer, 2.4 minutes, but the whole point of the exercise is to save fuel.

2,4 minutes at 8 sectors a day = 17 minutes this can mean i miss my night closure of my home base airport! (and your plane has to go into maintanance sooner because you have more flighttime every day). Just keep flying 250 in the descent then Atc will tell you a lot off time to increase speed to 300 knots anyhow the whole fuel saving is down the drain then.

Babemagnet,

You obviously feel very strongly about this, however you seem to be in the minority. As you said, either everyone fly 280kts or everyone fly 250kts. Seeing as most of us fly 250kts...

SJ777

Slim Shady - I stand corrected :ok:

In all honesty, i have no issues whatsoever flying slower or faster. But you know what, if the calculations are right then 50kgs a sector x by however many sectors my company flies per year = me keeping my job because my airline stays in business. And those occasions that atc tell me to speed up or slow down, then i'll do it with a smile on my face.

Babemagnet
You really have no idea do you?

It doesn't always go to plan - Even for our SAS.

We can all argue about Descent Speeds all day long, But when you are actually There it can all depend on the ATC at the time of day.

So all those Fuel Saving Calculations can change as fast as they are planned out.

This is obviously taking into account, Runway closed, Holding time,
Wind speeds etc.

a cost index of 9....249 knots in descent ..except when required by STAR (ie Amsterda 280).
1)We save fuel
2)Passenger ears comfy.(big difference in descent rate/cabin pressure change during an idle descent at 280 from 41000 feet rather that 250).
3)still on time
4)No need to look out for birds so much

However when flying to ATC regions where radar is not as accurate as in the UK for example, and some aircraft is behind and planning to land at the same place,,,i do advice ATC of our cross over speed so the other dude can replan his descent profile.Or possibly the controller to nicely ask me to get a higher descent speed earlier...which i will gladly do.
However the 350 knots to 20 miles may be good for places liken the US Midwest but not in civilized europe.
If 411A WANTS TO IMPRESS US, you should get your american fellow to use proper RT , you just break my ears!!!with your #airborne#, passing 234 for 350......

And i fly 20 sectors a week in a 737 and i get tired by some clowns who fly 250 knots all the time its not gonna work at busy airports so if you hear planes are following you go to at least 280.

LHR??? :ugh:

LHR??? standard speeds into the TMA .77/270 now.

It would seem that many people are doing 250kts (ish) so even at busy airports it should work quite well.

Going into AGP it doesn't really matter what speed anybody is doing as madrid ATC manage to hand over all the traffic to Seville completely unseparated anyway!!

I know following slow aircraft is a little frustrating but it actually makes little difference to your arrival time but quite a big difference to the savings to the Company.

factanonverba, I didn't understand a word of what you were trying to say, but I guess that the gist was that you don't necessarily make a fuel saving by descending at a slower speed? I would have to take issue with that.

Monarch used to do 290 kts as standard in the descent, so there must have been some reason for selecting that speed.

Then they changed it to 290 kts back into the uk (i.e. generally busier airspace) and ECON elsewhere.

Now it's ECON everywhere apart from the london TMA where it is 270 kts. This is not a Monarch choice but has been specified.

If everybody flew ECON, which takes into account the current cost of fuel, we would probably all be flying compatible speeds anyway.
Otherwise you can't complain about someone not flying as fast as you think they should be when no speeds have been specified.

I personally don't care what speed I fly. Faster get's me home quicker, slower uses up all my FTL's for the month and I might get to go to work a little less.

FIS.

Revenge is sweet, Babemagnet - now you know what it has been like for us over the last 20 years being stuck behind earlier 737s hogging the airways at 0.74 cruise.

cruise at 41000 is .77 (economy);-) on my 737...

Bet it wasn't on an 737 Classic!

babemagnet,

Its an issue to take up with your own management. Fly your plane, let others fly theirs.

Calling people who are simply following SOPs, that they didn't write, is a tad harsh.

When fuel is so expensive it falls to all of us to help each other. If you can accept a higher level and free a level for someone below you, take it if it is practical. If you slow down on the STAR, announce it to help the following aircraft.

Don't, however, react with anger: maybe an explanation that your SOPs are different would suffice.

Babemagnet
 

I'll fly econ speeds throughout the flight (generally 270 kts in decent on the 757) and I will do this unless ATC require me to fly another speed.

If other aircraft are following at a higher speed (like you babe) then ATC will either ask me to speed up or you to slow down - likely scenario is that you will have to slow down - I can't see what the problem is.

When you arrive in a TMA where most of the airlines are flying econ decent speeds (i.e. London, Amsterdam etc) then it might be easier if you followed a similar speed profile.

BTW the difference in descent speeds that you are concerned about makes about 1 minute max to the flight time.


Regards
Exeng

Babe

Why don't you follow your SOPs and we'll all follow ours. We could both then let ATC sort out the separation. That way we all stay happy, employed and keep things safe (and friendly!;))

PP

The only point i am trying to make is that if we all have different sops (descent speeds) and we all fly in the same sky that on lot of occasions this is not gonna work.