Once again you are asking for an exact answer to an inexact question. How high, what speed, how heavy, etc, etc.

I can vary the all engines fuel flow on my current type from anywhere between 2 tonnes per hour to 28 tonnes per hour so it’s impossible to answer unless you give more parameters.

But all these guys are going to say is somewhere between 25 and 30 tonnes. One day it will be 25 tonnes, another day it will be 30 tonnes depending on so, so many variables. You can ask as many ex-spurts as you like but the only correct answer you can get will come from either the NTSB, the airline’s deeply protected archives or from beyond the grave!

No, I am not really after a ballpark figure, rather I need to understand the procedure and the formula involved in calculating the fuel needed for a specific trip.

Surely someone in the airport takes care of that? Surely there must be a specific method to calculate the fuel needed for a specific trip?

And when you say 25-30 tonnes, are you speaking of metric tonnes?

BTW, sorry to all the ex-spurt pilots on here to disrupt your list with my noob questions.

Ex-spurt… makes us sound like retired porn stars!!!

You are never going to get anything more than a ballpark figure unless you can provide us with a set of forecasts, notams, company procedures, etc for that company at that time. Even then you would have to know the exact frame of mind and commercial approach of the pilots making the fuel decision on that particular day. So a ballpark figure is the closest you are ever going to get as the guys in question are unavailable to answer your query.

Also… the word ‘tonne’ is metric. The imperial unit is a ‘ton’.

In most companies the original fuel plan is drawn up by the flight planning department and then presented to the pilots. We will then take their recommendations and adjust it according to our operational knowledge closer to planned departure time. Fuel planning is a very complex subject which fills a huge section of any airlines manuals. It also varies enormously depending on many, many factors and from company to company and between regulatory bodies. It is not really possible to write one quick post and give enough info without incorrect assumptions being made.

It’s a bit of a ‘how long is a piece of string’ question really. You are trying to find an exact answer to an inexact question.

Aeroplanes are all about performing a balancing act of range against payload. You can carry little or no payload and then have the capability to fill the tanks to the brim and fly your cargo of nothing for a very long way… or alternatively fill up with lots of payload but now only be able to part fill the tanks and take alot of payload a short way. So which do you want, the useful range or the useless range? The reality is the range is ultimately variable depending on what you want to transport.

Reserves would have to be catered within the fuel load you are capable of carrying and depend on a multitude of factors, for example whose regs you fly under, ETOPS or long range criteria, use of en-route alternates, destination and alternate weather, political issues, performance degradations, aircraft weight, gut feeling, etc, etc.

When it comes to fuel we work in weight rather than volume. The reason for this is because of the temperature variation between the ground and cruise levels. 1 gallon at sea level would be a different amount after you climb to cruise level. However 1kg would still be 1kg (no pedants please!). If you work on a fuel burn of 5 tonnes per hour you won’t be too far out for a 762.

To give you a target figure for typical reserves expect something like 3.5 tonnes for a 762 to give 30 mins holding at 1500′ at the alternate (final reserve fuel) and fuel to get to a resonably close alternate (alternate fuel). If the destination weather was forecast to be near limits then you may well choose a more distant alternate which is likely to be further from the bad weather and carry delay fuel. On my current type (4 engine heavy) we sometimes plan to arrive in places like Sydney with 20 Tonnes.

No the RAT deployment is not instantaneous and the I can absolutely positively guarantee you that the A340 does have mechanical backup. I have flown the aircraft in mechanical backup in the simulator on more than one occasion.

It also nicely dispels the myth that an Airbus can’t fly with unpowered flight control computers (in fact it just becomes a conventional aircraft). Also nicely shows that despite being fly by wire the aircraft is inherently stable unlike most military applications on FBW.

I can’t tell you enough how pleased I am. That is the best news I’ve heard this week. Well done.

I always thought the GFT would be the most fun part and the IR would be a complete chore but the reality was that the IR was far more fun than the GFT. I think you’ll enjoy the next bits much more. Twin flying is great fun too… but not as good as 4! 😉

I guess I’m going to throw the cat amongst the pigeons here…

I accept that this is unacceptable but there are many circumstances where this could be a really easy mistake to make. I can name many airports with parallel taxiways that share the same visual proportions to the runway they follow. Combine that fact with no (or unserviceable) ILS and a low sun on the horizon and I guarantee everybody here would be able to make the same mistake at the end of a long day in fading light.

In order to try to reduce the chance of us doing this, Virgin contract Jeppesen to put extra pages into our airfield booklets showing a picture from late finals for every runway we regularly operate to.