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Old 11th Oct 2003, 08:36
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maxalt
 
Join Date: May 2001
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This issue has been discussed before and John Tullamarine gave a very good explanatiion...he seems to know what he's talking about. I saved it and here it is again (with your permission John).

BFL is a simplified approach to the sums, mainly of use for typically level-ish runways without any clearway declared or where a quick, manually-derived, answer is needed and we are prepared to forgo any benefit to be derived by considering the small margin of TODA over TORA.

Consider that many flight manuals provide a BFL subset of charts which is significantly easier and quicker to use than the detailed charts.

In this case the declared TODA should include the stopway (typically 60m or so) or remaining strip length and the declared TORA usually is not going to be limiting (ignoring the strange climb antics of helicopters).

There will be little advantage in playing with all the charts as the end result will be much the same weight.

There is a very important advantage for an operator with lots of runways to look after in that simplified rules can be generated for flight crew use (correction data and the like) ... in my view, this is a very valid consideration and the main reason that many people emphasise the BFL approach.

But it is important that pilots realise BFL is just a constraint on the more general takeoff weight analysis and, if you need the last kilo RTOW on the day, then the generalised analysis is the better procedural way to go. This can become quite an involved, pain in the neck, process when done manually. However, if it be simulated on the trusty PC, then it becomes a doddle ... working up the simulation is quite straightforward but takes a lot of time. When the work has been done, the production of optimised RTOW tables is quick and straightforward ...
(My emphasis)

Maxalt
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