How to calculate optimum cruising altitude?

1

Hello dear
pilots/flightengineers/groundcrewagents/cookies MMMMMMM

I have a question: I was hanging out with my best friend the User Manual, and I thought I’d read a bit about step climbs. I found that the « steps » depend of the « optimum altitude ». How do I calculate this optimum altitude? Or if I can’t, how can I plan my step climbs?
Thank youuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu :)

2

Hey there!

To plan step-climbs you have some options:

  1. Plan your flights with Simbrief which will give you a set of step-climbs to follow on long-haul flights.
  2. Use this helpful guide created by Andrew which gives the optimum cruise altitudes for each weight factor for aircraft in Infinite Flight.
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3

I already use SimBrief for step climbs, but I don’t follow it because it just makes me climb straight out to my final alt. Thanks tho I’ll check out Andrew’s guide!

4

Probably because the flight is short enough that a step climb isn’t needed. Either that or you don’t have “Plan Stepclimbs” turned on:

Screenshot 2025-01-09 at 15.13.17
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5

I do. And I use it too on ULH :( mi sad mi dessperet thanks anyways!

1 Like
6

And when I say it makes me climb straight out to my final FL, I mean that it still calculates the step altitudes, but I’d need to climb at 5000fpm to keep up with SimBrief