Originally Posted by
mitchellinmn
Ok my ignorance will be showing here, but a few guys have said fat on gas...why drag the gear around because of too much gas? To get down to max landing weight, couldn't you just ask for a lower altitude and let the engines do their thing and gulp down the fuel faster? Are there tire pressure monitors on the CRJ? I was thinking if they got a high reading maybe a tire got warm after a take off run? Stick it out in the breeze to see if it dropped back to normal? The biggest thing i have flown is a Duchess, so I have no idea.
It also depends on how much overweight you are, how much more flight time to destination, and when you realize you'll be too heavy. Lower altitudes don't work as well as some people think. We were projected to be 800-1000 overweight on one flight and we dropped down 10,000 ft. from cruise alt. for 30 minutes or so and it still barely made a dent in the fuel. We finally dropped down to 10,000 ft. (from a cruise altitude of FL360) for the last 100+ miles with flaps 9. We dropped the gear early and we were still overweight until 500' on final. This was all in the ERJ, so the -900 will be different but, like I said, altitude doesn't always work.