Noxegon
Presumably there's not a massive amount of scope for carrying extra fuel on LHR to EZE; it has to be fairly close to the maximum range of a B772, no...?
wiggy
Quote:
it has to be fairly close to the maximum range of a B772,
It's getting there but you've still usually got a little wriggle room, and there may be the option to trade payload for fuel if the bad weather is forecast and you know you may need the gas ( the only "close" in alternate for a 777 would be Montevideo - which shares EZE's weather. Failing that you're looking at alternates a significant distance away).
Whatever the alternate when making the fuel decision in London you're working on a forecast that will be well over 12 hours old by the time you get to EZE, and there's also the problem of the quality of the forecast.....and that's a problem not just confined to EZE.
Those are the reasons why flying from FCO to EZE with the MD11, many moons ago, when I saw that he burn off became more than expected (and we know that in certain seasons the headwind is very strong in those region) and/or the destination=alternate weather worsened next to the minima, I made more than once an intermediate stop at GIG to refuel.