On Mon, 31 Jan 2005, xerj wrote:

Wouldn't it simply be your airplane's best glide speed?

It would be the same AoA, but not necessarily the same speed. This speed
also varies with density altitude and weight.

hmm, AoA... Well just off the top of my head here, someone please correct
me if I'm wrong...

Stall speed, of course, also depends on AoA, not speed. So, if you have
an idea what stall speed does at different weights & density altitudes,
best glide speed should follow the same curve. Best glide is the point at
which overall drag is lowest, so it stands to reason it's also where max
range would be. If you can't avoid a headwind you may need to speed up a
bit to get the best ground speed per fuel burn, but that's a simple
calculation using ground speed & a close estimate of fuel burn.

So it seems, in practice, one should be able to get really close to max
range speed very quickly without any complicated calculations.

-Dan