Originally Posted by
BoilerUP
Its been the better part of 15 months since I flew one, but my experiences were nowhere near as bad as that. My technique was to maintain 290kts until I could no longer maintain 1000fpm climb. I would then VS 1000fpm until airspeed dropped near 250, then try to maintain 500fpm at or above 250kts. If I could not maintain that, I would level off and accelerate.
Climbing like that (admittedly a non-standard profile), I never had a problem getting into the mid-30s, even after a summertime MTOW departure...and it would normally accelerate to 0.74m or more after 10-15 minutes of level cruise.
I do much the same. Lately I have been seeing 1Kfpm through FL300, and 700-500fpm to the mid 30's. Lately FL330-350 has been the norm. In the summer its more like FL280-310.
If you are trying to climb at 320 indicated all the way up it won't climb above FL180 but 290/.70 indicated works well and is on profile from most I have talked too. The -200 is by no means a performer, especially compared to the 700/900, but it does do the job (cold helps of course).