Is legal minimum fuel a safe amount?

[brownstar]

Dear ppruners

On a daily basis are you happy to land with the legal minimum fuel OR a figure that you have determined, through logic and experience to be a safe amount.
Is the legal min of xxxxkg is a safe amount to be landing at your destination or is it just that, a legal minimum, or is it perfectly safe to land at your destination with 30mins of fuel. Does this 30 mins of fuel include fuel for a go around, if so how much fuel would you expect to burn in a go around.

So many questions.?

[The African Dude]

Most airline flights will land at their destination with a minimum of enough fuel for diversion to primary alternate plus legal minimum of 30 minutes. This diversion fuel does include go-around, assuming the full go-around procedure.

If the weather is good and there are no factors which could feasibly suggest you are likely to burn more fuel than planned, then this is enough legally and can be enough for some pilots.

However, more often than not there will be a small amount added on top during refuelling to take account of any possibility of weather avoidance, use of anti-icing systems which increase fuel burn, long taxi times, ATC delays (both airborne and on the ground) and sometimes for, err... psychological comfort! There is also a required contingency amount of 5% or 5 mins on board at departure, and assuming you don't need to burn this enroute, will be on board on top of your minimums as described before when you land.

Hope that helps!

[Dash8driver1312]

On a good-weather daily basis I am quite happy to land slightly above minimums (I like knowing that we could spin the APU for passenger comfort in case it's hot at the start of the leg and this gives the buffer ;-) )

[Piltdown Man]

On a daily basis are you happy to land with the legal minimum fuel...

Not really, but I'll do it. But 30 minutes of fuel isn't really that. It's 30 minutes of holding fuel at your current weight and 1,500' AAL at holding speeds. Go-arounds, speed changes etc. will burn fuel at a significantly greater rate than holding. Therefore, if I went around at my alternate at say 200' and had 30 minutes of fuel remaining, I would expect to get only one more G/A and an abbreviated circuit from the second. Fortunately I don't do this on a daily basis. If I did, I'd have a problem packing enough pair of underpants for every trip.