Originally Posted by
donpizmeov
You seem like a smart fella FGD. Let's look big picture again shall we . You have a concern, that at your diversion point, if you were divert because of eng fail or depressurisation, you may end up at the diversion airport without the required amount of fuel . You probably recognised this because of the rule about the required amount of arrival fuel?
We could:
A) chuck on some more fuel to ensure we are satisfied we have enough . Maybe use some planning and experience to do this. In which case that rule about the required amount of arrival fuel has done it's job .
B) get all worried because the authority didn't write a rule to show me how to do pilot stuff .
C) follow the darwinism rule and do nothing .
If the rules tell you what you need to be able to achieve, do they really need to go into the nitty gritty on how you must achieve it? Surely they only need to provide enough guidance to allow you, your training, your aircraft performance manual, company SOP etc decide how it's done .
The aircraft I fly has been designed to keep on truckin after a single failure . Should the authorities penalise it's operation with all-encompassing rules that are needed for less capable aeroplanes?
As I said before, big picture fuel planning means you decide if you have enough, or don't have enough . The rules give guidance on how much you need to arrive with . The journey to that point, and its planning is rightly given to the PIC to organise .
Another well composed post, man you are all over it there:-)
I'm paid as a Capt to make command decisions that fit into the rule box that CASA have designed (don't agree with some but such is life). I don't make the rules I just have to work within them. There are options like there should be with all aspects of aviation but some come with consequences like "Fuel Mayday", it's there in place just in case you are having a really bad day despite all your command capabilities, none of us are perfect, we ALL make mistakes & we hopefully learn from them:-)