Short Trip Cruise Altitude

Though Texas is a big place, there are still a lot of flights that could be considered short trips, which are roughly less than 200 nautical miles. The chart above is the Short Trip Cruise Altitude diagram taken from the Boeing 737-300 Flight Planning and Performance Manual. For the example shown, a trip distance of 150 nautical miles for an aircraft and a brake release weight of 55000 kilograms, equates to a cruise pressure altitude of 25500 feet.

Using data based on the reference weight of 45000 kg I created an estimator that is very simple to use, and could be helpful when planning short trips for the 737-300 and other large jet aircraft:

ALT = 2428.6 + 174.52 * NM

where ALT is the estimated short trip cruise altitude and NM is nautical miles.

Comparing the simple formula to the example shown, the estimated altitude using the formula is 28607 feet while the charted result was about 12% lower. Probably a negligible difference for a short flight in a large jet.