CRJ-200 Climb Profiles

[SlumTodd_Millionaire]

Hope this helps and by the way, try bringing those numbers up with management if you haven't already. Maybe, just maybe, they haven't thought of it yet. Good Luck.

He works for Pinnacle. Any suggestion from a pilot at Pinnacle is immediately discarded by management, no matter how good of an idea it is. If they didn't think of it themselves, they don't want to hear about it.

I am not proposing to fly any slower overall... Cruise at .74 is still on the agenda (as much as going faster is always better for the psyche). The difference in the climb (typically only 2-3 min change overall) saves a hundred bucks or so. Time is made up and lost on the ground- not the air on most of our flights. Saving 500lbs of gas and taking 2 minutes longer normally would have you (cost wise) in the black, all efforts are destroyed when you wait 15+ minutes to be parked. I see the hourly cost argument but I also see that climbing to altitude faster (time wise) and decending at a higher angle (4.0degrees mentioned) and faster (while still at a lower power setting) kinda evens out on the time, yet the fuel savings is still there- at least in my rationale. This is the sole reason I brought up this topic, keep the replies coming...

You've got the right idea about how to do things in the CRJ. The only caveat is that you should always try to climb at a faster speed for the first 20,000 ft or so when leaving a hub or other busy airport. The mainline planes departing behind you don't want to get held up. After 20,000 ft or so, most of them have climbed well above you anyway, so it's not that much of an issue. Until then, you should climb at least at 290. I tried to do at least 300. Aside from those instances, I used a graduated scale depending on how heavy we were.

53,000 lbs - 250/.70
47,000 lbs - 270/.72
42,000 lbs - 290/.74
<42,000 lbs - 310/.76

Works pretty well, and you can usually maintain at least 800 fpm all the way up unless it's really blasted hot out. You're also right about going higher most of the time. WorldFlight calculates the next couple of altitudes automatically, so you've already got the burn numbers to be legal, so go on up. Saves at least a couple hundred pounds usually, and sometimes you can find more favorable winds.

decent at 320/.74 (to get an idle decent not a .77 acceleration) and the default planning to 4.0 degrees. I would be interested in seeing how it works out for others.

This is where I disagree. Most fuel efficient in the descent is a flight idle descent at .74/300. Going faster is actually decreasing your fuel savings because you're descending at a much faster rate. Doing the 300 knot profile gives you about 3,000 fpm descent at idle. Works very well. Pinnacle was talking about making this SOP, but they never got around to it.

The MX argument you give is not totally correct. Flying 5 more minutes will not equate to $80 in higher cost for the flight ($16 x 5) even though mx costs are what you say they are.

The majority of the MX costs are fixed costs, C-Checks, engine changes, line mechanics etc. These costs will be present whether the aircraft flies 10hrs/day or 8hrs/day. The actual wear and tear of 5 minutes of flying is rather insignificant.

Here's an example...I have a Learjet...I do $180,000 worth of MX on it per year or $500/day. This includes it's annual, and all required checks and having MX available 6hrs/day. I fly the plane 1hr per day....So Mx costs are $500/hr. If I now decide to fly the plane 2 hrs per day, my mx cost per hr flown would drop ($250/hr). Sure I would have more mx on the aircraft throughout the year, but overall the cost of mx would be distributed over more hours flown lowering the cost of mx per hour.

So....getting back to your example...Flying 5 more minutes will not directly cost $80 in increased maintenance.

Agreed. Most power-by-hour programs come nowhere close to costing more than the saved fuel. The best way to reduce mx costs is by de-rated/flex takeoffs. That's where the big savings comes in.

 

[GaTechKid]

Our fuel conservation profile is to climb at 200 up to 10K, 250/.70 to cruise, .74 in cruise, and .74/300 in the descent. We do the normal profile out of ORD and ATL.

 

[MDPilot]

You've got the right idea about how to do things in the CRJ. The only caveat is that you should always try to climb at a faster speed for the first 20,000 ft or so when leaving a hub or other busy airport. The mainline planes departing behind you don't want to get held up. After 20,000 ft or so, most of them have climbed well above you anyway, so it's not that much of an issue. Until then, you should climb at least at 290. I tried to do at least 300. Aside from those instances, I used a graduated scale depending on how heavy we were.

53,000 lbs - 250/.70
47,000 lbs - 270/.72
42,000 lbs - 290/.74
<42,000 lbs - 310/.76

Thank you.

 

[kellwolf]

Wanna really save gas in the descent.....don't do a 3 degree decent. Do a 4-4.5. You'll stay up longer burning less gas, and you'll be idle all the way down.

 

[EDUC8-or]

Also known as "How to be an even bigger roadblock in the skies than a CRJ is now."

Do you have any idea how much extra fuel a 767 burns because we can't speed up and do an unrestricted climb to cruise because a slow CRJ is in front of us out of ATL? I'll gladly give you a few hundred pounds credit if you'll just speed up!!

It's not that we don't want to speed up, as you probably already know the 200 is a dog. Our climb profile is 290/.74 and I always stick to that. If we're heavy and it's hot we'll start to dog out before the flight levels. If it's heavy, warmer than standard, and we've got the ice protection on it's doubtful we can do 500 FPM. If we're slowing up a long line of traffic I'll usually just level off if we can't do 290 in the climb while climbing at 500 FPM.

 

[NC_BE300]

I think alot of us would love to go faster and "make way".
Believe me, been there, done that behind some ERJ's, and other traffic.

But with the fuel conservation being a really pressing issue....and big D still wanting to get more money cut out of the budget-i've heard that some profiles could become even slower.
-Or so that is the rumor.

Now the profile cards we use can let us adjust with speed we are flying at based on weight, wind, ISA dev, and so on. But the most i can recall seeing on those cards are .74-.77

As far as normal operating procedure-if the performance cards are available-we fly 250kt till 10k, then 290kt until we reach our planned Mach speed-then fly the mach speed for the rest of the climb & cruise.
Then of course for the descent-using much higher VPA's in the 4's and so on for the descents and crossing restrictions. And 250kts again below 10k.

It does seem insane to fly around as slow as we do sometimes-but until the fuel budget gets better (ha), or some other changes happen-it seems thats the elephant dragging behind the wing.