fred_garvin wrote on May 10^th, 2010 at 8:30pm:

At my FSpassenger wts, I was falling out of the sky at 26,000 ft.  I bumped the thrust scalar from 1  to 1.1 and it does make a good bit of difference.

I have flown the 727-100 with the following configuration:

Empty Weight = 87600 lbs
Payload = 20310 lbs
Fuel = 51462 lbs
Gross Weight = 159372 (MGW = 161000 lbs, so I'm only 1628 lbs under that)

and I was able to reach FL280 quite easily. When the fuel in the centre tank reached the same as the wing tanks, I chose that time to climb to FL320. I had no trouble reaching it. I actually thought I should have been flying at a higher altitude.

Mark

EDIT: It is now a few hours later and I'm doing a flight with the 727-200 close to its maximum weight (209071lbs). It does take a long time to get to FL280. The last 2000ft were at a climb rate of about 500 fpm and a speed of ~250 KIAS. But I still got there. With the fuel at approximately 42000lbs I did a climb to FL320 once again it was around 500 fpm and ~250 KIAS. It certainly isn't as zappy as the 727-100. :(