Welcome Guest. Sign in or Signup

3 Answers

What is Absolute ceiling?

Asked by: 10413 views Aerodynamics, General Aviation, Student Pilot

What is absolute ceiling and service ceiling? Are there any difference between the two? Does it apply to both single engine and multi engine?

Ace Any FAA Written Test!
Actual FAA Questions / Free Lifetime Updates
The best explanations in the business
Fast, efficient study.
Pass Your Checkride With Confidence!
FAA Practical Test prep that reflects actual checkrides.
Any checkride: Airplane, Helicopter, Glider, etc.
Written and maintained by actual pilot examiners and master CFIs.
The World's Most Trusted eLogbook
Be Organized, Current, Professional, and Safe.
Highly customizable - for student pilots through pros.
Free Transition Service for users of other eLogs.
Our sincere thanks to pilots such as yourself who support AskACFI while helping themselves by using the awesome PC, Mac, iPhone/iPad, and Android aviation apps of our sponsors.

3 Answers



  1. Russ Roslewski on May 30, 2016

    Wikipedia has a pretty good, short article that should answer your questions.

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceiling_(aeronautics)

    One of the references is the Pilots Handbook of Aeronautical Knowledge, page 10-7, which has a good discussion as well.

    0 Votes Thumb up 0 Votes Thumb down 0 Votes



  2. Michael Smith on May 30, 2016

    Absolute ceiling is the maximum height above sea level that an aircraft can maintain level flight.

    -2 Votes Thumb up 0 Votes Thumb down 2 Votes



  3. Skyfox on Jun 02, 2016

    Absolute ceiling is the maximum altitude the aircraft can fly at max throttle while maintaining level altitude and constant airspeed. That would assume the most ideal mixture setting, prop setting (for a constant speed prop), and clean configuration.

    Service ceiling is the ceiling at and above which the aircraft can no longer maintain at least 100 FPM of climb with those ideal settings as mentioned above.

    Since these ceilings likely refer to standard atmosphere, in a nonstandard atmosphere they probably translate to a density altitude.

    +5 Votes Thumb up 5 Votes Thumb down 0 Votes


Answer Question

Our sincere thanks to all who contribute constructively to this forum in answering flight training questions. If you are a flight instructor or represent a flight school / FBO offering flight instruction, you are welcome to include links to your site and related contact information as it pertains to offering local flight instruction in a specific geographic area. Additionally, direct links to FAA and related official government sources of information are welcome. However we thank you for your understanding that links to other sites or text that may be construed as explicit or implicit advertising of other business, sites, or goods/services are not permitted even if such links nominally are relevant to the question asked.