The point you seem to be missing Flanker is that on a 13 hour flight you having sparse fuel for holding is not necessarily the fault of the PIC either. When planning a flight 15 hours ahead you take as much fuel as you think you need, and maybe even a little extra for comfort. But the point is, the calculation for required fuel is not done on the back of a fag packet, its done by a computer calculating the performance of the specific aircraft based on forecast temperatures and winds aloft that are 6 hours old, and might be 21 hours old by the time you arrive at LHR. Add in quite accurate statistical data for holding and delays into LHR plus the other legal requirements and you have a fuel figure. You might want ot ake more than that, but it needs to be justified. You can turn around and say I want X tonnes more because of LVPs at LHR but you can't really keep saying I want 2X tonnes more and screw the company because I say so. Nobody is pressurised to take less fuel than they need, but they are asked to take only as much fuel as they think they need. Then when you find the winds are stronger, the temperatures higher, the routing less direct and the holding lengthier you may find that your best, most educated assessment wasn't enough this time. Which takes us back to the position of Antiguas initial post.
Edited to say having reread this post it may still leave me open to the accusation that "If you think the adverse events may occur then you should be loading more fuel". Perhaps, but then I don't walk around watching out for meteroites that might hit me. One has to make a professional judgement which is only as good as the information you base it on. Its not precise, its hit and miss and its the rare miss occasions were talking about here, not the regular hits.
Last edited by Carnage Matey!; 25th April 2002 at 13:54.