How to fly a B737-300

                                           original text by Guy Daems


Technical Data
History
Downloads

The Boeing 737 is not certified to takeoff without any flaps. An aural warning advises the pilot if he should have forgotten. To avoid crashes, from now on, we will take off with flaps. Usually, the setting is flaps 5 (Simu = flaps 5). Set 'TO-thrust' 94% N1 (Simu = 94% N1; which is NOT full throttle). Fuel flow is approximately  4.000 kg/h per engine. The Boeing accelerates approximately 40 seconds before having enough speed for lift-off. At the rotation speed Vr we lift the nose at a rate of 3°/second. We want the nose at a BA (body attitude) of 20ø with a light hesitation around 10ø BA to avoid that the tail should strike the ground during rotation (explicit problem for the737-400 which is 3,19m longer). The speed to fly after take-off is V2+15 kt.
Takeoff Weight
Flaps
Trim
Vr
V2+15 kt
40 mt
5
4
112 kt
141 kt
50 mt
5
4.5
129 kt
154 kt
60 mt
5
5
146 kt 
168 kt


1500 ft AGL
At this altitude we will select climb thrust: approximately 90% N1 in function of the outside air temperature. The BA is lowered from 20° to 17°.

3000 ft AGL
From here we start to accelerate. BA is lowered to ~10°. Flaps up. We accelerate to 250 kt.

FL100 ft AGL
From here we accelerat from 250 to 300 kt to continue climb. At the moment we reach Mach 0.74, we continue climb with a constant mach and BA 5°. N1 increases from 90% to 96% (FL350).



Usually at Mach 0.74. The N1 at FL310 is 77-86% (40mt-60mt) with BA 2° and trim 2.
Fuel Flow ~1,100-1,200 kg/h




We descent with idle thrust. The descent angle is usually 3° = 5%. Descent at  Mach 0.70 until 280 kt. This speed will be flown until FL100 where we start reducing to 250 kt.

Back to main
1