Fuel reserves
Joined: Aug 2003
Posts: 1,218
Likes: 0
From: Surrey
What I was taught (a long time ago) with regard to fuel was
1 - You must depart with a plan and fuel sufficient for the plan plus 30 (45 if night) minutes of fuel plus what ever additional reserve you as the pilot feel is required.
2 - If at some point in the flight it becomes clear you will arrive with materially less than the reserve amount the pilot should divert.
3 - If nearing the end of the flight (ie. diversion will not save much fuel) and the pilot expects to arrive on his reserve this would be expected to result in a 'Minimum Fuel' advisory call. The meaning of this is, I do not require priority handling for safety, but if I get any material delay I will need to declare a low fuel emergency (PAN PAN or MAYDAY in Europe - depending on the precise nature of the situation).
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To the question, voluntarily poncing about in the circuit while burning into your 30 minutes (eg. lets do a few practice approaches before we land) has every potential of a Careless and Reckless charge if the FAA notices. However, there is no hard and fast legislation (like much of the FAA system), so they would view this activity in a typical spam can (ie no real certainty as to the amount of fuel) much less favourably than a highly instrumented aircraft with capacitive fuel gauges/fuel flow, etc.(i.e. high certainty as to remaining powered time).
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Reminds me of a line from one of the Vietnam war pilots, 'I still had 4 minutes of fuel - not yet at low fuel emergency, so I let the B-52 do the 'dreaded 7 engine emergency landing' ahead of me'!
1 - You must depart with a plan and fuel sufficient for the plan plus 30 (45 if night) minutes of fuel plus what ever additional reserve you as the pilot feel is required.
2 - If at some point in the flight it becomes clear you will arrive with materially less than the reserve amount the pilot should divert.
3 - If nearing the end of the flight (ie. diversion will not save much fuel) and the pilot expects to arrive on his reserve this would be expected to result in a 'Minimum Fuel' advisory call. The meaning of this is, I do not require priority handling for safety, but if I get any material delay I will need to declare a low fuel emergency (PAN PAN or MAYDAY in Europe - depending on the precise nature of the situation).
-----------
To the question, voluntarily poncing about in the circuit while burning into your 30 minutes (eg. lets do a few practice approaches before we land) has every potential of a Careless and Reckless charge if the FAA notices. However, there is no hard and fast legislation (like much of the FAA system), so they would view this activity in a typical spam can (ie no real certainty as to the amount of fuel) much less favourably than a highly instrumented aircraft with capacitive fuel gauges/fuel flow, etc.(i.e. high certainty as to remaining powered time).
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Reminds me of a line from one of the Vietnam war pilots, 'I still had 4 minutes of fuel - not yet at low fuel emergency, so I let the B-52 do the 'dreaded 7 engine emergency landing' ahead of me'!
Thread Starter
Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 3,648
Likes: 2
From: UK
I would go as far as to say that it looks like a case of plagerism to me...!
1) The FAA rules refer only to the fuel load at the beginning of the flight. The EASA NPA refers to "fuel reserves", which customarily need to be maintained throughout a flight. Thus to answer my own question i), I think the answer is no under FAA rules and yes under the EASA NPA.
2) Related to 1, the FAA rules only require "enough fuel to fly to the first point of intended landing". It doesn't specify that this needs to be on the intended route, so it doesn't appear require more than direct track plus 30 mins, even if you intend a scenic tour that's 25 mins longer.
3) It has no exception for a local flight, possibly because 2) above provides some sort of exception in a different way.
Which is really why I asked about how they're normally interpreted.
