How far can a boeing 737 glide at 39,000 feet?
lets assume best glide is a decent at 1500 ft/min – this should be close – so it will stay in the air for 26 minutes – 26 minutes at 190knts = 82 nm – of course fpm will depend on load, distance isn’t everything, there is also minimum sink rate, which will keep you in the air longer, but not go as far – useful for prep time, like circling over an airport. if you feel like subtracting 1nm for the 2knt wind……..kinda like a flea on a whale. there is a good story about a pilot who was a glider enthusiast dead-sticking into a closed airport in canada (fuel exhaustion) more people got hurt jumping out of the plane because nose wheel collapsed, and the slide at the back of the plane did not have enough angle to slow people down. with a bit more work, i found between 18:1,and 20:1 – so more than 100nm. but you need to get the gear down etc, you also need to subtract the altitude of the airport from your altitude, since you only have AGL to glide…. ah 2knts is the ground wind speed, here
