I’m flying the Grand Caravan with full tanks on an IFR flight. ATC instructs me to climb to 17,000 feet which is well within the rated ceiling of the Grand Caravan, but at around 11,000 feet, the plane begins to stall and cannot climb any higher. I then have to request a lower cruise altitude to shut up the ATC that keeps nagging me to expedite my climb.
Is the ceiling reduced because of the full fuel load? I can’t understand what else could be causing it, unless it’s a bug or if it’s just my ignorance in aerodynamics.
I don’t know about the Caravan specifically I suspect the service ceiling is for a specific weight so it’s quite possible that you need to lower your weight to achieve it.
Everything that effects the density of the air you are flying in also effects your aircraft’s ceiling, so temperature, pressure, humidity, etc.
Also the 11.000ft may be AGL?
I figured it out by reading a different post (someone was having AP issues). I was using VS and was climbing at a rate to keep ATC off my back, but it was too steep for the plane to maintain speed so it was stalling. I’m going to use FLC instead of VS in the future.
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