Media hysteria on low fuel states in 3, 2, 1...

[Admiral346]

Two's In, sorry for not getting your irony.

Now about the post above:

The legal requirements I have posted do not pose a maximum level of fuel, it is the legal minimum you have to carry. That is the commanders descicion. If I fly into JFK on minimum fuel, I am simply stupid. There is a forseeable delay to be expected at many airports in the world, and that's when experience and gutfeeling come into play. I am supposed to complete my flight 1. as safe and then 2. as economical as possible. In exactly that order. That's what they pay me for.
If it was simply sticking to some formula, actually the dispatcher could decide on the fuel load, or some computer.

Fortunatley I work for a company, where noone will ask justification on why I carry extra fuel. It is up to me to decide.

Nic

[SeniorDispatcher]

>>>I have a suspicion as to why no one ever mentions dispatchers, but I don't think you'll like it.

That's a given in my profession, but also a given since we see so few PICs grace our office for visits (unlike our required jumpseat rides each year, and folks, we're talking about the west side of the Pond here, FAA Part 121 ops).
JMHO, but NWS TAF accuracy has suffered here in recent years, and it's not only dispatchers who sometimes can miss the clues.

I had a call from the PIC of a PHX-MCI flight once, asking (in not an all that nice tone) why I as carrying OKC as alternate and 50 minutes of contingency. (How wasteful!) The rest of the conversation when something like this...

Why are your carrying all this fuel?

There are thunderstorms that are..

(Interrupting me) there are no thunderstorms forecast for MCI...

Well I know nothing's forecasted but there's a line up to the northwest that...

(Interrupting me again) and the convective sigmets have that line NW moving from 27030 so it'll be north of MCI...

Well, the convective sigmet may say 27030 but looping the radar indicates more like 33030 on the movement, straight for MCI.

Well, let's use TUL instead of OKC since it'll be closer and less fuel to get there...

I'm using OKC because the orientation of the line is such that if the line grows to the SW (as they commonly do here), TUL has an excellent chance at being impacted at the same time as MCI, and OKC would be further west and behind all that. (OMA WX sucked, in case anyone was wondering, and STL was on the other side of the probable line that would be forming.)

He then wanted to talk to a Chief Pilot about my reducing the fuel, and while I said that I'd be happy to 3-way the CP in, I was telling him up front that I wasn't going to be coming off the OKC and :50. He went with it, and wasn't "happy" about it.

Enroute and abeam AMA, the NWS snaps to the 33030 movement of the line and thoughtfully amends MCI's TAF for TEMPO 1/4SM TSRA (GR too!). I pass the info along, and suggest that he pull it back to LRC since other aircraft were just starting to hold at ICT. He ended up only holding at ICT for :20 (TUL got clobbered too, as expected) and he had a clear shot from ICT to OKC the entire while.

I'm by no means saying that it happens one way as often as it does the other, but the point is that it can, and that it takes communication between PIC and dispatcher to come up with an optimum plan. One party, be it PIC or dispatcher, assuming that they have all the info to the exclusion of all other players, can be in for a nasty surprise, and one that would have very likely been avoidable.

Again, that's all west-Pond dispatcher/PIC stuff under Part 121--your country's regs may well vary...

[Fredairstair]

Is this really the best we can do on a min fuel discussion?

[J.O.]

If I fly into JFK on minimum fuel, I am simply stupid. There is a forseeable delay to be expected at many airports in the world, and that's when experience and gutfeeling come into play. I am supposed to complete my flight 1. as safe and then 2. as economical as possible. In exactly that order. That's what they pay me for.

Any carrier that has operated into JFK more than twice knows that. If your flight dispatch system doesn't take those delays into account and add an appropriate amount of fuel to the flight plan to cover it, then I'd argue that you have a very bad flight dispatch system. It may even be illegal, depending on whose regs you follow.

[mabrodb]

Here is a mind bender, I can actually think of a few occasions where carrying more fuel than the min. rqrd may decrease safety, and put a flight closer to the stopping margins on a shortish rwy, e.g. rwys less than 2000m.

[Admiral346]

Mabrodb

If I have to operate to a short runway, but I find it necessary to carry extra fuel for whatever reason (wx, traffic,...) and i will be limited by my max allowable landing wieght on that airport, then I don't leave the fuel behind, I leave payload behind. Cargo, Bags, maybe even Pax will have to stand down. I decide how much fuel is necessary. I am responsible for the flight. And most of all, it's my @ss in that plane, not the Ops guys' or the dispatchers or the managers'.

Nic

edit: Ok, that sounds like I don't care about all the others. Of course I take all the advice into account, when coming to my descicion on how much extra to carry. Maybe my FO has flown into that airport many times and has experienced major delays. Or dispatch knows something about wx.
When the weather is acceptable I regularily sign the flightplan blank and give it to my FO to make his own decision, when it's his leg to fly.

[RAT 5]

I once flew for a European charter airline on the Atlantic routes to the Caribbean. They had a minimum fuel policy. If you carried any extra it had to be accounted for. Their thinking was that on such a long flight there was 2500kgs contingency = 35mins. More than enough for things to go wrong at destination. Cras! They also thought that the flight planning system had the winds accurate to the nth degree. No so important on the east bound leg with tail winds and lots or airports to drop into from the French coast or UK, but on the west bound leg with headwinds, definitely not the same circumstances. With jets streams of 150kts, they only need to be 100nm nearer, or 20 dregrees more aligned to a head wind and your 35mins disappeared in a trice; plus 2000' lower than optimum. The contingency was for off level or extra winds, but not both. The destinations were often N.P.A's. The forecast models were made 20hours before our arrival, metars sometimes not available on departure. If going to Cuba, and on the northerly routing, then dropping into the USA for fuel was a no no. If on the southerly routing there were not too many en-routes to top up in should it go wrong. Leaving fuel behind in Europe when I needed it over the Atlantic and in the Caribbean seemed daft. There were a few 'heros' who had stories to tell. Coming home to a CAT 3 Rwy in the middle of Europe is fine with minimum. There is that 2500kgs after all, and the winds are generally tail winds. A drop off of 20kts is not so critical.
This was also an airline that tried to use a different cost index for every sector depending on fuel price at both ends. Shame that the flight plan was for constant Mach.

The first time I took extra fuel and wrote the reason as "ME", they didn't get the joke. What is this Mike Echo standing for?

[acbus1]

.....occasions where carrying more fuel than the min. rqrd may decrease safety.....

When you're on fire.

[Flyit Pointit Sortit]

I think that the reason that dispatchers are not mentioned is that in Europe, (well my large LOCO anyway). The Dispatcher has no input or decision with regard to Fuel at all.
The computerised flight plans are generated by Jeppespon and then the commander uses this information to decide on the fuel required.

The only thing that dispatchers are involved with is being told what fuel we want and making sure that that Fuel Figure is on the loadsheet.

Cheers!

[sleeper]

Not only loco's. Our dispatchers make the flightplan, including fuel, using all operational aspects. However that almost always results in the closest alternate and the lowest legal cont. fuel.
It is then up to us to either accept or change the blockfuel.
Although the reason for extra fuel is requiered, it is never questioned or, heaven forbid, denied.

[JW411]

I am now retired from long haul flying but one of the things that we used to do was to adjust our computer flight plans NEVER to accept an alternate that was closer than 150 nms from the destination.

The main thinking was that this ensured not having an alternate that could just possibly have the same unexpected geographic weather deterioration as the destination might get.

It also ensured that we never had a situation such as happened to the PanAm 747 that diverted from JFK to EWR one night. One engine ran out of fuel on the landing run and only two were running when they got to the gate.

The big problem was the fact that their flight plan gave EWR as an alternate based on the straight line distance of about 27 nms.

Anyone who thinks they can get out of the JFK pattern and then into the EWR pattern in 27 track miles is living on another planet.

I know that JAA requirements allow you modern-day guys to "commit" to an airfield with two runways and with a reasonable TAF but I cannot imagine what it must be like to make an approach knowing that you cannot make a go-around.

I only retired 18 months ago but I never ever landed an aeroplane in UK with less than fuel for BHX or MAN if I didn't get in.

I rather fear that that things are getting a bit tight nowadays.

I don't mind flying to plog fuel. That's pretty much what we did when I was flying on Part 121 (reclear flight plans) on the DC-10. It made the decision making process quite easy. If we bowled up to Mickey intersection on Long Island and were greeted with the news that JFK had at least 45 minute delays then we went straight to Bradley and refuelled.

A couple of diversions per year was much cheaper than burning two hours of fuel going round and round the hold and STILL diverting.

[sevenstrokeroll]

Fuel...oh those bean counters...its ok to "tanker" fuel to an airport where the fuel is expensive, but not to where the fuel is cheap.

Bottom line...if you want more fuel request it and don't leave home without it.

The one GOOD thing about the media coverage is that the bean counters will now have to factor in Public Relations as part of doing business.

The tv spot, transcript somewhere prior to this, has the question asked: state fuel in pounds...of course the pilot came back with 38 minutes.

Duhyup.

Before things went to hell in a handbasket, my airline used the concept...hit the outer marker with an hour to get somewhere and 45 minutes on top of that...worked good in the golden triangle. If things were really bad...take more... a diversion to an airport that would likely get 20 diversions does cost more in time and money than a bit more petrol.

[Wiley]

The first time I took extra fuel and wrote the reason as "ME", they didn't get the joke. What is this Mike Echo standing for?

I had a similar acronym I used a few times and was only once asked to explain: "M&K" - or "...for Mum and the kids".

[calypso]

Does taking more fuel decrease safety? a couple of scenarios

On a CAVOK day you take plog fuel with a diversion 20 miles down the road, as a result your CMR is 30minutes + 10 minutes diversion. On approach you have a flaps or gear problem. Right away you are under a lot of pressure and safety will be lower because you cannot afford the time to deal with the problem properly. You will have to rush through the procedure and just land as soon as you can. You may have to accept a shorter runway or one with a higher crosswind.

On a normal day you fly into airport B with plog fuel. Join the hold and shortly afterwards you are told B is below minimums or closed (due security, blocked runway, etc). You divert to airport C. Unfortunately everyone else also diverts to C. Airport C is smaller than B and cannot handle all the arrivals. You hear another aircraft declare a PAN, then another, now you have to declare a Pan yourself. The system only works if only a few divert, only very ocasionally someone declares a fuel PAN or Mayday. Taking less fuel does not decrease the level of safety here provided everyone else takes more and are able to give you priority. You are in fact relying on the decisions of other commanders to take more fuel in order for you to be able to take less.

[Right Way Up]

Calypso,
On a CAVOK day you take 30 mins extra fuel with a diversion 20 miles down the road, as a result your CMR is 30minutes + 10 minutes diversion. After 30 mins holding, on approach you have a flaps or gear problem. Right away you are under a lot of pressure and safety will be lower because you cannot afford the time to deal with the problem properly. You will have to rush through the procedure and just land as soon as you can. You may have to accept a shorter runway or one with a higher crosswind.
On a normal day you fly into airport B with 30 mins hold fuel. Join the hold and after 30 mins hold waiting for an EAT you are told B is below minimums or closed (due security, blocked runway, etc). You divert to airport C. Unfortunately everyone else also diverts to C. Airport C is smaller than B and cannot handle all the arrivals. You hear another aircraft declare a PAN, then another, now you have to declare a Pan yourself.

[the_hawk]

Right Way Up, in your scenarios you add a 30 minutes hold on a normal day to the problems Calypso desribes, so you have two holes lining up where Calypso has one -> your scenarios are less probable -> higher safety achieved

[gatbusdriver]

I think you all have it wrong

You should always tank fuel. What if on approach you have the gear and flap problem, then you have a fuel leak, lose an engine then have a hydraulics problem.

It would be ludicrous not to tank up to max landing weight

[BOAC]

I think you missed out the ?

[Yossarian]

Isn't this what we are paid for? Our knowledge and experience on a route. Carrying extra fuel through China or into Lagos, is arguably a must, but often not reflected in the Flight Plan. Having spoken to dispatchers at my airline, I have often seen a lack of understanding of the situation. Perhaps, as I am led to believe, dispatchers in the US have a more personal stake in the flight.

The company will occasionally flight plan us with fuel up to MLW, due to a chance of fog at hub. With this in mind, I have little compunction in adding what I consider neccesary for the specific flight I am doing.

All in all, I have never yet regretted taking extra fuel, but have sometimes wished I'd taken more.

[Right Way Up]

The_hawk,
Not necessarily as in my experience the first to divert tend to have an easier ride than the later ones. I am not a plog fuel pilot. Neither am I a full wings pilot. For every sector i take a professional view of the fuel reqts & if I believe there is a reason for extra fuel I take it. I then back it up with a proactive management of the fuel situation during the flight. Its no good getting to the hold with extra fuel, lazily look out of the window for 30 mins then act all shocked when you don't get an approach. The main problem is the people who mindlessly choose their fuel. The ones who take an extra 30 mins every time for "mum", or the ones who go plog fuel every time. It shows a complete lack of decisionmaking or management.