Input on the Astra, please?

[HMR]

Hi Sheep!

You just reminded me of my one and only flight in your old bird. It's amazing how many things can go wrong in an 8 minute flight from LAX-BUR!

 

[Makesheepnervus]

HMR, I didn't know you flew old "Lame Duck".
I just remembered that she grounded us 3 times out of 3 when crossing the Atlantic; once in Gander, once in Luton and once in St. Johns!

 

[Lead Sled]

When the Astras first came out, the big problem was hydraulic leaks. On coast to coast legs you used to have to make a stop somewhere in "fly over country" to top off the leaky hydraulic systems...

"Please check the fuel and top off the hydraulic systems."

'Sled

 

[capnflyright]

We fly S/N 52 which is an SP model. Trip today was FOK (Westhampton) to LAS (Las Vegas). With 55-60 kt. avg. winds we did the trip in 5:55 and had 1500 pounds reserve. Avg burn was 1325 pounds per hour. We flew it at .71 and step climbed to 430 using the optimum range chart. 3 adults and 150 pounds of bags. Could have flown longer, but LAS starts you down 200 miles out.

 

[Lead Sled]

We fly S/N 52 which is an SP model. Trip today was FOK (Westhampton) to LAS (Las Vegas). With 55-60 kt. avg. winds we did the trip in 5:55 and had 1500 pounds reserve. Avg burn was 1325 pounds per hour. We flew it at .71 and step climbed to 430 using the optimum range chart. 3 adults and 150 pounds of bags. Could have flown longer, but LAS starts you down 200 miles out.

Do you have the fuselage tanks installed? We don't and just for grins, I ran the profile for our plane (a Classic) and we would have done the trip in 5:21 using .76 across the board using this mornings winds and temperatures aloft. It showed us getting into LAS with right around 1,500 pounds. If you fly the thing at much below .76 you start "pushing" at lot of air because of your AOA. .30 on the indexer will pretty much put you on the money.

'Sled

 

[PHX767]

All good info!

The plane we would fly is a classic (no winglets), I believe. Sounds like a good plane for our mission.

Now to see what the Man wants to do....

 

[Makesheepnervus]

Sled; I found the same thing to be true with our old classic, .76 or .77 seemed to yeild the best results, anyting less just resulted in a longer trip with no better reserves at the destination.
Likewise I would find cruising at .78 vs .80 typically only added 4 or 5 minutes to a trip, but saved hundreds of pounds of fuel.
I found it interesting that if you check the buffett margin charts the best margin for typical weights and altitudes is found at approximately mach .78 to .79 .

 

[G100driver]

Sled; I found the same thing to be true with our old classic, .76 or .77 seemed to yeild the best results, anyting less just resulted in a longer trip with no better reserves at the destination.
Likewise I would find cruising at .78 vs .80 typically only added 4 or 5 minutes to a trip, but saved hundreds of pounds of fuel.
I found it interesting that if you check the buffett margin charts the best margin for typical weights and altitudes is found at approximately mach .78 to .79 .

Ditto .... If we could not make the west coast at .76 we flew at .82 and made a fuel stop.

Prefered was .78 for economy vs time.

The Astra should be a perfect airplane for PHX ... just get a good headset with earplugs.

 

[Lead Sled]

Right after I received my type I had the opportunity to spend a week or 10 days with one of the factory certification and production test pilots. We flew coast to coast a couple of times and I had the opportunity to ask every possible question that I could think of – basically the “whys” and “how comes” of everything in the AFM. When we finished our trip I still had more questions and he had more time, so we took out my boat and went fishing. It was one of the most productive training experiences that I have ever had. I was the lead international captain at the place where I was working and I wasn’t very thrilled about flying an airplane that most folks said couldn’t fly as far or as fast as the factory promised. Since then, I’ve flown all 3 variants of the Astra over 3,500 hours world-wide. It’s certainly not a G-V, but there’s not another mid-size jet that give you as much bang for the buck.

'Sled