Flight level question

[fran65]

Hy all and have a good monday! ;-)
A simple question about flight level, because I think is important for fuel consumption: do you choose at your way or there's some rule or table or other standard info?
An example: with 111-500, jumping from egcc to egpf, I fly at 22000; from egcc to eddl at 31000. I think is correct, but I'm not sure...

Ciao from a rainy Italy!

[DaveB]

Hi Fran from a very dull, cold and overcast UK

You can pretty much go with what you want mate. I rarely fly the One-Eleven (for example) higher than FL250 which is her optimum eco altitude though of course, she'll fly much higher. FL250/310Kias/M.72 and I'm pretty happy to be there for as long as it takes ;-)

ATB

DaveB :tab:

[fran65]

...great!
So I can stop to go around in the site with magnifier searching for info ;-)

FL250 is good for long route too? (to spain, italy etc)

[NigelC]

From a flight planning point of view, the rule of thumb for the One-Eleven was distance in nm = FL, so for a 160nm flight- FL160, for a 250nm flight - FL250 and so on, up to service ceiling which was FL350. (Except the four -400s built for Gulf Air, which were capable of FL370 at light-ish weights as they had uprated air systems)

On the day, it may have varied due to temp and pressure. And weight of course!

I remember being on the jump-seat of a -510ED, Malaga to Stansted, and we got held down at FL310 as there was a Monarch A320 going to Gatwick that came out of Malaga behind us. It didn't pass us until we were over southern France, and once past we climbed to FL350. Without that climb, we were looking at Bordeaux for a tech-stop for fuel. (Hot at Malaga, and no De-min water injection, performance was not good! Very weight-limited!)

At BIA, on trips from the UK down to the Med, we would file the -400s at FL330 out, and FL350 back, and for the -500s FL290/310.

Nigel C

[fran65]

Ciao Nigel,
thank you for trick and tips. Are/was you 111 pilot?

[NigelC]

Alas no. I was in the operations department of a number of companies operating 1-11s and was able therefore to take many trips on the flight deck jumpseat, great times. I used to prepare all the flight planning paperwork, from ATC plans through to Navigation Logs, and fuel plans.

I am the Operations Manager of a Jetstream operator now, but those halcyon days back with the likes of British Island Airways and Mediterranean Express, amongst others, were the best! I cut my teeth in this business on the 1-11 and it remains the favourite which is why I enjoy DMs model so much.

Regards

Nigel