any airlines fly this high?

[Chris E]

I have been learning of the atmosphere and my teacher says that major airlines fly at over 8 miles high, which is over 40,000 feet.  I had thought that mostly airlines flew at about 30,000-35,000 feet.  Am I right, or do airlines really fly that high?  I know the Learjet can get up there, and several others can, but it just seemed to be a bit too high.

[beefhole]

Only for very, very long flights.  For example, a B744 on a KLAX-YSSY (Sydney) route will cross at 40,000+ft sometimes.  However, you are correct, most airliners cruise at 30,000-37,000'.

[Hagar]

Not really relevant now but Concorde's operating altitude was 60,000 feet.

I found this interesting article. http://www.travelscholar.com/concorde/

Whilst traditional subsonic jetliners usually reach a cruising altitude of thirty to thirty-five thousand feet, Concorde nearly doubles that, cruising at an altitude between fifty-five and sixty thousand feet. British Airways claim that "only astronauts fly higher," and that the altitude puts you far above the weather, allowing for an extremely smooth, turbulence-free flight.

[Chris E]

ok, so some do get that high, then my teacher isn't wrong, i never would have guessed the concord went that high either, wow, that could explain why in previous versions of FS I crashed too much in that, hehe

[jrpilot]

Even on some short flights (1500 miles) aircraft sometimes cruise up that high, either it may possibly be cost efficient (tail wind) they are just running a high cost index (this happended to me so  when they were off schedule and need to catch up) or ATC has asigned them that altitude due to heavy traffic or any sort of reason....

[Chris E]

oh, ok, thanks, I will add that stuff to my project to get more accurate facts, thanks a lot everyone

[Scottler]

Highest I've ever flown in all my time with CAL was FL390.

[chomp_rock]

Last overseas flight I was on (BA 747-436) cruised at 42,000.

[Rocket_Bird]

Flew over the pacific various times at around 42000 ft

[Craig.]

did 41,000 on a flight home from charlotte to gatwick in an A330

[jrpilot]

did 41,000 on a flight home from charlotte to gatwick in an A330

I bet you it was US Airways?

[Craig.]

yup.

[AlphaBravo]

When i went to canada last summer we went to 40,000 due to bad turbalance



Craig

[Rifleman]

On my last west to east run over Canada, we were at 37,000 and came upon some high weather over Winnipeg, so up went the throttles and up went the nose......41,000 was where we finished the flight........

[Craig.]

......41,000 was where we finished the flight

Now thats what you call a high altitude airport:)