At what altitude does a passenger plane fly? Airliner flight speed

2024 Author: Harold Hamphrey | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 10:06

Looking from the porthole of a sky liner at a distant land below, at the pockmarked patches of fields, at a scattering of lights that are cities, one involuntarily wonders: at what height does a passenger plane fly? We will try to answer this seemingly simple question. The thing is that the altitude factor that the liner gains during flight is influenced by several factors. And the first one is the car model. We often see planes in the sky. Some of them look like a sparkling star leaving a trail of gas behind it. These are jet planes. They move silently across the sky. And there are such liners that, loudly and gutturally growling, rush so low that you can see the company emblem on the fuselage. Why such a difference in climb during flight? Read more about it below.

Perfect height. What is it

From school science weremember that the higher you go up, the rarer the atmosphere becomes. This also reduces the friction of the sides of the aircraft against the air. This means that the fuel consumption required to overcome the resistance of the atmosphere decreases. It would seem that all liners should, based on this principle, fly at maximum height. Somewhere in the stratosphere, where there is almost no air at all, there is no friction. But after all, the wings of the liners are designed for the fact that the car is to some extent supported by air currents. And if they are not there, the plane begins to “fall over”. That's why pilots talk about the ideal corridor. This is the space between nine and twelve thousand meters above the ground. At what height a passenger aircraft of this design flies - the pilot calculates based on its technical characteristics. It should be a "golden mean" between friction and maintaining the machine with air masses.

Route direction

It may seem strange that the factor that affects the altitude at which a passenger plane flies is its route. Dispatchers, in order to prevent the collision of air liners in the sky (after all, no one will survive in such an accident) established the following rule. All aircraft heading east, with various deviations to the south or north, occupy odd air corridors. It is usually nine and eleven kilometers from the surface of the earth. And liners flying west follow in even "ranges" of heights (ten and twelve thousand meters). Based on technicalparameters of the machine, the pilots calculate which corridor they should choose and inform the ground controllers about it. And they already warn the ship's crew about meteorological conditions on the way. Sometimes, in order to avoid the zone of turbulence, the liner has to decrease or gain altitude. Dispatchers control the entire course of the aircraft and keep in constant contact with the pilot.

At what maximum height do passenger planes fly

Some countries close airspace over their territory (or part of it) due to armed conflicts. High mountains cause turbulence at altitude. All these reasons the pilot must take into account when plotting the route. The path of the aircraft agreed with the controllers, as well as the average height at which the flight will be made, is called the "level". But natural disasters in the form of high thunderclouds cannot be foreseen in advance. Extensive cloud cover leads to great turbulence. And the pilot should go around the clouds to avoid danger. And it is better to do it on top, where no vagaries of the weather are terrible. The maximum flight altitude of passenger aircraft depends only on the type of aircraft. For example, TU-204 can climb only 7200 m. The new IL-62 - eleven kilometers. The Airbus A310 has the same maximum height. And what plane is capable of climbing twelve kilometers into the sky? These are jet engines. The Boeing 737-400 is capable of climbing from the passenger sides to the highest height.

What is the speed of the plane

The greatest amount of fuel is consumed at the start of the liner. After all, a heavy car should be well accelerated in order to get off the ground and gain height, overcoming strong air friction. Therefore, regardless of the height at which a passenger plane flies, the rise occurs as quickly as possible. Passengers are then told to fasten their seat belts as the liner develops cruising speed. The Boeing 737-400 has this technical characteristic of almost eight hundred kilometers per hour. When the plane reaches its average altitude, the cabin announces that the seat belts can be removed.