YNM Posted April 11, 2018 Share Posted April 11, 2018 2 hours ago, mikegarrison said: It's not that hard. They just call and ask to climb to the next flight level. Ah. This is what featured in FSX (you can request new cruising altitude), but... Well, oddly the only long-distance flight I've been on didn't feature it. Haven't flew on anything else long-distance... 2 hours ago, mikegarrison said: You may be confusing this with "climbing cruise", where the airplane flies at a constant W/delta, and thus as weight decreases, the airplane climbs continuously. Step climbs approximate that but with level segments and then short climbs between them. I'd imagine the two are derived from similar principles. (thank you for the info, sorry I'm out of "reactions" !) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shpaget Posted April 12, 2018 Share Posted April 12, 2018 On 4/11/2018 at 2:02 AM, YNM said: the only long-distance flight I've been on didn't feature it. How do you know? Step climbs are routine in European flights and planes don't necessarily fly at altitude they filed in the flight plan. Pilot requests higher, ATC green lights (or doesn't) and plane goes higher. If the flight is delayed at departure, the pilot will ask for higher than usual to compensate (planes fly faster at higher altitudes). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
YNM Posted April 12, 2018 Share Posted April 12, 2018 16 minutes ago, Shpaget said: How do you know? The altitude didn't change on the flight information available on the in-flight entertainment display. AFAIK they are real - airspeed slows down during turbulences, headings change (correctly) as plane turns, altitude changes in after takeoff ascent/approach & landing descent. One possibility is due to wind shear at higher altitudes, but I'm not sure. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shpaget Posted April 12, 2018 Share Posted April 12, 2018 Ok. It's entirely possible that this flight got whatever altitude they requested and stuck to it. In a crowded airspace they rarely get their requested altitude right off the bat, so need to be a bit more patient. As for coordination between different countries (or even between different sectors in the same ATC center), all data is automatically shared with all interested parties and (depending on how much time there is before transfer) one 15 second phone call is all it takes to coordinate the changes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
YNM Posted April 12, 2018 Share Posted April 12, 2018 (edited) 8 hours ago, Shpaget said: all data is automatically shared with all interested parties ... but not the legals. The flight goes over Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India (also before Sri Lanka I think), Oman, then Saudi Arabia airspace. I presume within the EU you just need one permission. Same with within the US. I don't know why, but I thought those two (legal or shear) might be the reason; shear because we traverse the ITCZ and then the 23.5 equivalent (whatever is it called). Why IMO legals are important ? Because that's the only way you can tell things are legit. Our legals is noticeably slow; this crashed flight haven't cleared through all the legals in Indonesia at time of scheduled flight (my father says it's a common practice somehow for extra peak-season flights to just be done while later the legals caught-up) while it clearly has cleared through the legals in Singapore (where I presume things are even more crowded). That crash led to complete scrutiny of the "later-on procedure", gets loads of flight otherwise fully booked and in many aspects well-scheduled and well known by crews (customs, ground, airplane, air traffic, even to an extent authorities) to be canceled. And as the legals involve routing, I can only assume flight altitude is part of the requirements. Hence why legals might be a factor. I'm sorry moderators if this is too much of a tangent, and it's about two diversions deep. Edited April 12, 2018 by YNM Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vanamonde Posted April 12, 2018 Share Posted April 12, 2018 Looks like this thread has left its actual topic far behind. Please start new threads for those other topics. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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