Contingency fuel

[Flenit]

Hi guys

Can someone please confirm the minimum required contingency fuel for a commercial flight with a trip fuel of 1000 kg and a final reserve fuel of 1110 kg ?

I do have a discussion with my flight planning department and they claim that the company uses 5% (no enroute alternate) which is about 50 kg, but doesn't JAR-OPS require a minimum of 5 minutes holding fuel 1500 feet ISA, ie in this case 185 kg as a minimum ?

Rgds

[inner]

yes i thought the same.

Think you are right.

[Curtis E Carr]

You may wish to read OPS 1.255 (http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2008:010:0001:0206:EN:PDF)

[Flenit]

I did check out 1.255, but my company still does mean that the 5% is the only required and asks me to stop argueing, had a flight with planned contingency fuel of 64 kg and that was it, JAR-OPS only "absolete" they said !! Guess I will just change the value on thew OFP next time.

[172_driver]

When a Operations Manual is approved by the Authority, does it become a legal document?? If their is a check, is the captain responsible for operating with less than 5 min contingency fuel or can he just claim he was operating i.a.w. the OM? Just a thought I came up with....

[Dr Eckener]

Check your OM. Whatever is written is what is needed. Will be in Section 8. I'd be surprised if it said anything other than 5% of trip, or 5 mins holding, whichever is higher.

[frontlefthamster]

Perhaps we should all bear in mind that if Flenit flies for a UK operator, he has no 'approved' ops manual... UK CAA do not 'approve' manuals...

Generally, contingency is 5% of trip fuel.

Contingency fuel - why it is required, when it may be used, what to do if it's all gone, etc - is very poorly understood. A failing of the training world I fear...

[12Watt Tim]

You are right, Flenit, five minutes is the minimum (I have been involved in rewriting an ops manual and in teaching flight planning).

Just to confirm, the following is cut and pasted directly from EU-OPS (yes, I am sad enough to have a copy on my computer) which is far from obsolete:

N.B. paragraph 2 is about using a decision-point procedure to reduce contingency fuel

Appendix 1 to OPS1.255

1.3 Contingency fuel, except as provided for in Paragraph 2 ‘Reduced Contingency Fuel’, which shall be the higher of a. or b. below:

(a) Either:

(i) 5% of the planned trip fuel or, in the event of in-flight re-planning, 5% of the trip fuel for the remainder of the flight; or

(ii) Not less than 3% of the planned trip fuel or, in the event of in-flight re-planning, 3% of the trip fuel for the remainder of the flight, provided that an en-route alternate aerodrome is available in accordance with Appendix 2 to OPS 1.255; or

(iii) An amount of fuel sufficient for 20 minutes flying time based upon the planned trip fuel consumption provided that the operator has established a fuel consumption monitoring programme for individual aeroplanes and uses valid data determined by means of such a programme for fuel calculation; or

(iv) An amount of fuel based on a statistical method approved by the Authority which ensures an appropriate statistical coverage of the deviation from the planned to the actual trip fuel. This method is used to monitor the fuel consumption on each city pair/aeroplane combination and the operator uses this data for a statistical analysis to calculate contingency fuel for that city pair/aeroplane combination.

(b) An amount to fly for 5 minutes at holding speed at 1500 ft (450 m), above the destination aerodrome in Standard Conditions.

frontlefthamster

I think they do under EU-OPS. Some parts are the primary legal restriction for the subject they cover. For example CAP 371 is no longer legally binding, so the operator's FTL scheme must be approved, and that is in the Ops Manual. I might be wrong, but if so it would surprise me. They certainly made enough fuss about the layout of teh one I helped rewrite!

[frontlefthamster]

There are a very few elements of an ops manual which do, as you suggest, get 'approved'. However, the FTL section is not one (to the best of my memory when I last did a UK operator's manual), and CAP371, a guidance document which happened to contain some examples of possible schemes, was never 'legally binding'.

Yes, the CAA certainly make a fuss about manuals submitted, but I find it's better to consider that one reaches a point at which they stop making objections...

Other authorities, in Europe and elsewhere, do 'approve' manuals...

[12Watt Tim]

Ah, fair enough. It's always treated as legally-binding anyway, and usually written to be over-cautious. I am really surprised if an ops manual was incorrect or incomplete in this regard and still accepted by the Authority. They are pretty firm on these things, and when EU-OPS came in became far more thorough in actually checking.