I have flown all over the world in a 135000LB grey beast, on the bones of my arse in fuel with little friendly divert options, without sitting an ATPL flight planning subject and not once run out of fuel. Only using the techniques from the good old Lockheed based flight manual and basic SGR's. Why does the exam have to be so hard and if dudes are still screwing up their planning in big aircraft, what went wrong with their type conversions?... On the subject of gross error checking the computer for fuel planning (I do it my self), how many times has it been wrong?