CI=300

I’m just jealous our 737s don’t have the hydraulics like the Delta 737s do…


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Not "whipping" anything out, but this made me remember a flight not too long ago. We were going to be late as **** getting home because cascade approach was busy and it took forever to get in and out of EUG for a token approach for my back seater student. Filed return was granted, FL220 or something else barely in class A, and we had a ton of gas. So I just went 0.95 or so all the way back to NUW. At one point near PDX or OLM, the center controller asked "hey guy, say airspeed". I got a chuckle out of that. Pretty much guarantee I was one of the few numb nuts he'd seen rolling coal that hard while that low. I imagine that qualified for ludicrous CI.
 
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Not "whipping" anything out, but this made me remember a flight not too long ago. We were going to be late as **** getting home because cascade approach was busy and it took forever to get in and out of EUG for a token approach for my back seater student. Filed return was granted, FL220 or something else barely in class A, and we had a ton of gas. So I just went 0.95 or so all the way back to NUW. At one point near PDX or OLM, the center controller asked "hey guy, say airspeed". I got a chuckle out of that. Pretty much guarantee I was one of the few numb nuts he'd seen rolling coal that hard while that low. I imagine that qualified for ludicrous CI.

I’d regularly cruise at .99 while on my training missions in the stealth. That would be anywhere from FL260 to 290. I’d be a little slower on the occasional legs we’d get that were below FL180. The thing carries a crap ton of fuel anyway. So I could afford that. I just liked getting from target town to target town quickly and not wasting time sitting in cruise between them.
 
I’d regularly cruise at .99 while on my training missions in the stealth. That would be anywhere from FL260 to 290. I’d be a little slower on the occasional legs we’d get that were below FL180. The thing carries a crap ton of fuel anyway. So I could afford that. I just liked getting from target town to target town quickly and not wasting time sitting in cruise between them.

haha nice. And I agree.......aint nobody got time for cruise time. I'd probably have double the hours if I had ever given a F about flight hours and had done the old max E drill to/from like some. Had a skipper on my wing once ask me "hey don't you want to slow down and get those airline hours bro?"......."nah, I'd rather hang out for an extra 20 mins on the ground before the debrief". Didn't know your girl ran that fast to be honest
 
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haha nice. And I agree.......aint nobody got time for cruise time. I'd probably have double the hours if I had ever given a F about flight hours and had done the old max E drill to/from like some. Had a skipper on my wing once ask me "hey don't you want to slow down and get those airline hours bro?"......."nah, I'd rather hang out for an extra 20 mins on the ground before the debrief". Didn't know your girl ran that fast to be honest

she can easily run faster, but there are a few issues with doing that and other constraints…..
 
I tend to notice the higher the CI the lower the aircraft will indicate as the OPT ALT.

Under the old flight planning software dispatch flight planned us everywhere at CI30. When dispatch rolled out the new planning software flight plans came out with some wild CI numbers anywhere from 125 to 830

When the CI numbers got around 400-500 usually it would be 340/.80 on the climb out with the cruise alt around FL260 with some heavy fuel loads to compensate for the fuel burns at low cruise alts

That lasted about two weeks then I think dispatch limited the CIs to CI99 when it wanted to minimize flight time to catch back up when delays had a reasonable chance of getting back on schedule.

If you were wicked late and had no chance of getting a+14 then dispatch didn’t care and you were going CI25.

at turboprop altitudes the 320 will true out at 490kts doing an indicated speed of 340 indicated Mach 0.80 but fuel is always the limiting factor and you never have the fuel.

But I’ve found that talking with the dispatcher solves a lot of things. Tell him what I want and get him to agree and as long as we both agree then you can pretty much do whatever you want.

Even with high CIs like 999 the aircraft isn’t going to exceed any airspeed or airframe limitations. You’re still limited by those limits. It’s still up to the pilots to say .80/340 in the descent with CI99 is not something you are going to allow. You just override it with .80/290 and the plane flies a smoother descent instead of it complaining DRAG NEEDED in the descent
 
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I get paid block or better, and not that much overall, so it’s as slow as possible without getting yelled at, unless the nice people in the back are way delayed, about to miss connections, or it’s go home leg.
 
I routinely see between 20-99 at my shop. If you’re getting in super early the box auto prints telling us to slow to 0. Total jerk.
 
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