Sceptical “…
thinking the need for that accurate of a weight …”
Maybe, but its the thinking in general which raises concern.
If operations are based on approximations, then what about ill-considered ‘approximations’ (uncertainties); e.g. the reported wind speed, runway conditition, all of which affect landing distance. How might these add up to erode the distance safety margins; which combinations are more critical on a length limited runway.
Yet crews manage uncertainty everyday; which suggests that judgement of the approximation is good enough, but when might it not be, when does it becomes the critical factor.
xxxx m runways are only sufficient up to a point; how is the point of sufficiency judged, the point at which approximate landing weight is still good enough … when we are near a limit, … but that requires more accurate assessment of where the limit is, i.e. less ‘approximation’ … etc …
‘…
common practices exist to evaluate the corrected FOB for landing …’; whatever value / rule of thumb is chosen always consider the range of outcomes; safety margin in LDR vs LDA. This is increasingly important on short wet runways where margins decrease, thence approximations are more critical. #12, swf
