Going over past flights for Donald Trump’s Boeing 727-023 (VP-BDJ), I have noticed that his crew flight fly atypically low enroute altitudes for the aircraft. The Boeing 727 with a little 108 foot wing was never known as an altitude machine, but crews normally could manage 31-33 thousand foot initial altitudes with a burn-off to 35-37 thousand on longer flights in the -200 advanced. This is puzzling.
With the high fuel specifics of the old JT8’s they are burning probably in excess of 3,400 pph/engine down at 27-28 thousand. Looking at the ground speeds it looks as if they are poking along at around .80 Mach so they aren’t pushing the aircraft to .82-84 Mach which it is capable of. The only thing I can think of is “The Donald” doesn’t want the cabin altitude to get to high and has ordered the crew to fly low if possible. At the Boeing 727 pressurization differential of 8.6, his hair follicles are getting plenty of much needed oxygen!! flightaware.com/live/flight/VPBD … /KLAX/KBOS
The lack of Reduced Vertical Separation Minimum certification was a good guess. However, going back 90 days in VP-BDJ’s flight history there were instances of the aircraft at FL-310 (for example), above the 28,000 ft. requirement for 1,000 ft. separation equipped aircraft. On the other thread there was a suggestion that the 39 year-old Boeing 727 may not have met an Airworthiness Directive. Again, a good guess because a Boeing 727 with only one yaw damper is only good to 25,000 ft.
You can get an allowance to fly a non RVSM airplane in RVSM airspace, but it’s hard on the controllers and they won’t always allow it.
See FAA document GEN 04009 paragraph J for rules concerning this.
And paragraph K for rules concerning non RVSM aircraft climbing through RVSM airspace without level-offs.
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