Actually, at FL300 the fuel flow would be more like 1550 pph per engine. At FL350 the fuel flow would be about 1230 pph per engine.
Speaking of cruise speeds, there was another Southernjets flight crossing thru "London Control". "London Control" asks, "Delta XX, say mach number"
"Ahhh, we're ahhhh seven six eight"
That last digit scrolls around like a freaking slot machine!
How did you figure that it is most efficient at .76? I can see it on longer flights but if a flight is an hour and you are burning 500 more pounds of fuel and only getting there a few minutes earlier it doesn't make sense to me.
For what it's worth Mach .1 ~ 60 kts. .01~6 knots .001 ~ 0.6 knots.
ROOOOOOUGHLY. But perhaps Tgrayson could elaborate.
Basically, by flying slow into a headwind you are staying aloft longer than you would by flying faster. You may have a fuel flow of 2400 pph compared to 3000 pph, but if you add 30 minutes to the flight, have you gained anything? All you've done is stay airborne for an extra 30 minutes and broke even on fuel burn.
Surprisingly, I climbed one evening at 310 knots and transitioned to .72M up to FL370, accelerated to .78M, then did a 4.0 degree descent to our destination. We shaved off over 20 minutes of scheduled flying time from our paperwork, and saved over 1000 lbs of fuel. It was the complete opposite of what you would expect from that profile.
damn. I figured it was around 1000PPH each engine or so....
thats alot.
its only that low when we are holding![]()