Phenom 100: Optimizing Speed, Range and Cost

Provided for educational purposes only. Not to be used for flight planning.

The Phenom 100 Pilot Operating Handbook has several dozen pages documenting power settings for various
speed and range scenarios: Max Cruise, Long Range, Mach 0.65 and Mach 0.52. These are documented at ISA
for various altitudes and aircraft weights. It’s a lot of data. Most pilots though either want to go as fast as
possible, as far as possible, or as cheaply as possible. What’s the simplest way of doing this?

Go as Fast as Possible

Simple. Fly at the Max Cruise setting for all altitudes, weights and winds. Actually, as the chart below clearly
shows, there is an optimal altitude for maximizing True Air Speed -- FL300. At that altitude you’ll cruise at 390
knots at full gross weight increasing to 401 knots at 7,600 pounds as you burn off fuel. So the airplane actually
is faster than its published 390 knot maximum speed for weights below full gross. This is over 100 knots faster
than the Long Range power setting which decreases from 303 knots at full gross to 267 knots at 7,600 pounds.

True Air Speed

45000

40000
9,600 Pounds
35000

30000

25000

20000

15000 Max Cruise

10000 Mach 0.65

Long Range
5000
Mach 0.52
0
225 250 275 300 325 350 375 400
Nautical Miles / Hour

What about winds aloft? As you can see from the chart, True Air Speed doesn’t change much between Flight
Levels 240 and 340. So within these Flight Levels fly at the best altitude for winds to maximize ground speed.
However, True Air Speed decreases rapidly above FL340 dropping down to 329 knots at FL410, a 60 knot
decrease. So if you truly want to go as fast as possible, there needs to be a significant tailwind advantage to
justify climbing to the upper Flight Levels.

Of course, there’s a penalty to be paid for trying to keep up with the airliners, fuel flow. At a mid-cruise weight
of 9,600 pounds and FL300 a Max Cruise power setting consumes 948 pounds per hour compared to 588
pounds per hour at Long Range cruise. This is detrimental to both range and trip cost. For example, at FL 300
1,000 pounds of fuel will take you 505 nm at Long Range cruise, but only 415 nm at Max Cruise. Where did
these numbers come from? They are each power setting’s Specific Range multiplied by 1,000. And what is
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Specific Range? It’s True Air Speed divided by Total Fuel Flow, or a measure of how far a pound of fuel will
propel the airplane. Multiply the Specific Range by the weight of a gallon of fuel and you get Nautical Miles
per Gallon, about 2.8 NM/Gallon for Max Cruise at FL300. Long Range cruise would be about 3.4 NM/Gallon
under the same conditions.

If you want to get there fast, fly Max Cruise at FL300.

Go as Far as Possible

The Long Range power setting provides the best range, and economy, for almost all situations. As the chart
below shows, range increases nearly linearly with altitude; approximately 2.3 percent for every additional
1,000 feet of altitude; climbing to FL410 from FL310 increases range by nearly a quarter. So as we all know get
high and stay high as long as possible.

Range vs Power Setting

Zero Wind
45000

40000
9,600 Pounds
35000

30000

25000

20000

15000 Max Cruise

Mach 0.65
10000
Long Range
5000
Mach 0.52
0
225 325 425 525 625
Nautical Miles / 1,000 Pounds Fuel
(Specific Range x 1,000)

How do winds affect selecting the best power setting for maximum range? Not very much. Consider the two
charts below for 100 knot head and tail winds.

Range vs Power Setting Range vs Power Setting

100 Knot Headwind 100 Knot Tailwind
45000 45000

40000 40000
9,600 Pounds 9,600 Pounds
35000 35000

30000 30000

25000 25000

20000 20000

15000 Max Cruise 15000 Max Cruise

Mach 0.65 Mach 0.65
10000 10000
Long Range Long Range
5000 5000
Mach 0.52 Mach 0.52
0 0
150 200 250 300 350 400 450 325 400 475 550 625 700 775 850
Nautical Miles / 1,000 Pounds Fuel Nautical Miles / 1,000 Pounds Fuel
(Specific Range x 1,000) (Specific Range x 1,000)
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In both cases, Long Range cruise provides the best range except for two altitude extremes. Theoretically, Max
Cruise delivers more range when flying into 100 knot or more headwinds below 15,000 feet. But how often
does that happen? More realistically, with strong tailwinds slowing down to Mach 0.52 between Flight Levels
340 and 400 adds a little range, but it hardly seems worth the trouble.

Note how headwinds compress the range curves and tailwinds stretch them. So if you’re flying into strong
headwinds you only pay a small range penalty for flying at Max Cruise -- and you travel much faster over the
ground. A 100 knot headwind at FL300, for example, would slow your ground speed to 197 knots at Long
Range cruise, but only 293 knots at Max Cruise. Remember though, you need to be facing headwinds of nearly
100 knots or more for this to make sense. It’s not like piston planes for which flying faster into any headwind
usually is more efficient. Jets are different.

Also, during descent, as you level off at intermediate altitudes, don’t nurse fuel flow by pulling power back too
much. If you’re interested in maximizing range (and Fuel on Board after landing) fly at the Long Range power
setting. At 10,000 feet, for example, you’ll burn around 730 pounds per hour. Indicated Air Speed will only
be about 200 knots, well under the 250 knot speed restriction below 10,000 feet, but that’s the most efficient
fuel flow for that altitude. (Increasing fuel flow to about 950 pounds would increase IAS to about 245 knots.)

Go as Cheaply as Possible

To answer this, let’s consider two scenarios: 1) an owner/pilot who keeps his aircraft indefinitely and isn’t
concerned about the aircraft’s value depreciation, and 2) a charter operator which pays pilots by the hour and
sells the aircraft after a few years so is sensitive to the aircraft’s book value. Assume the Owner/Pilot’s costs
for airframe and engine maintenance plus miscellaneous other expenses are $600 per hour. The Charter
Operator pays this plus another $600 per hour for pilot time and the airframe’s value depreciation for a total
of $1,200 per hour. Below are the costs for cruising 500 nautical miles for several scenarios.

Total Variable Costs to Cruise 500 Nautical Miles

Variable Cost per Hour Not Including Fuel:
Owner/Pilot: $600 per Hour // Charter Operator: $1,200 per Hour.
Max Cruise at FL 3000 // Long Range at FL410
Owner/Pilot Charter
Max Cruise Long Range Max Cruise Long Range
Hours 1.27 1.52 1.27 1.52
Fuel Pounds 1,206 796 1,206 796
Hourly Variable Cost $ 763 $ 912 $ 1,527 $ 1,824
$ 2.00 per Gallon 360 238 360 238
Total $ 1,123 $ 1,150 $ 1,887 $ 2,061
$ 3.00 per Gallon 540 357 540 357
Total $ 1,303 $ 1,268 $ 2,067 $ 2,180
$ 4.00 per Gallon 720 475 720 475
Total $ 1,483 $ 1,387 $ 2,247 $ 2,299
$ 5.00 per Gallon 900 594 900 594
Total $ 1,663 $ 1,506 $ 2,427 $ 2,418
$ 6.00 per Gallon 1,080 713 1,080 713
Total $ 1,843 $ 1,625 $ 2,607 $ 2,537
$ 7.00 per Gallon 1,260 832 1,260 832
Total $ 2,023 $ 1,744 $ 2,787 $ 2,656
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As you can see from the spreadsheet, it’s almost always cheaper for the Owner/Pilot to fly Long Range cruise.
The crossover point is somewhere between $2.00 and $3.00 per gallon ($2.42 actually), but who’s paying that
for fuel these days? The Charter Operator, with a higher variable cost per hour, does better to minimize flight
time by flying Max Cruise at FL300. Here the crossover point is between $4.00 and $5.00 per gallon. Since
most Charter Operators are presumably paying less than this, flying as fast as possible makes the most
economic sense; and their customers arrive sooner.

Rules to Fly By

Well, all this has been quite a bit of work to get some pretty simple, common-sense answers. We can
summarize everything into a few basic rules to fly by:

 To go as fast as possible, fly Max Cruise at FL300.

 To go as far as possible, fly Long Range cruise at FL410.
 At intermediate altitudes, don’t nurse fuel flow. Flying the appropriate cruise setting for your weight
and altitude will maximize speed or range, as required.
 To fly as cheaply as possible, fly Max Cruise at FL300 if your hourly variable costs are high otherwise fly
Long Range cruise at FL410 if your hourly costs are low.

Simple as they are, these rules work the majority of the time, the primary exception being head and tail winds
exceeding 100 knots; slow down when you’re high and speed up when you’re low.

Haven’t had enough?

For a truly comprehensive discussion of jet aircraft performance and fuel economy, see the two Airbus papers
available on JetBrief.com at:

http://www.jetbrief.com/library/getting_to_grips_with_aircraft_performance.pdf
http://www.jetbrief.com/library/getting_to_grips_with_fuel_economy.pdf

Together, they total 296 pages. Corrections and contributions to this and other papers are welcome. Visit

http://www.jetbrief.com/library/

Fly safely.

Contributed by: Ron Gruner

21 February 2010 (updated 10 May 2010)