Originally Posted by
captjns
Zero Fuel Weight has no bearing on VMC.
Directly, this is technically correct. (As my post states)
But minimum flight weight has a powerful effect on VMC.
And the lowest possible value for minimum flight weight is clearly the minimum zero fuel weight case.
Therefore zero fuel weight is an indirect constraint on VMC, and if you don't want to have to worry about minimum payloads and minimum fuel loads, and just take a simple and conservative approach, you could simply state "minimum flight weight = min zero fuel weight" in which case MZFW would be a direct driver to VMC.