B744F Company question

[Anthony Saraceno 1464]

Hey I was wondering what you guys use for fuel reserve because everyonce in a while i get the insufficiant fuel message....Is my 45min fuel reserve supposed to be for 45Min of fuel at my CRZ ALT for instance FL410 or is it 45Min fuel reserve in a hold at 5000ft? is there a company rule for requred fuel reserve? typically i try to land wiht like 16-19 but everyonce in a while i mess up on a long flight and ill land with to little like for example the flight i just landed at SEA i landed with 13.8...so i guess thats breaking the law? or maybe not? Oh and is the cost index different for Atlas air someone said Polar was 100 Is atlas also 100?

[hawkeyeted]

"I use 11K in the RES block. Heres how I do it: Climb/Enroute Fuel+Alternate Fuel+15 min Hold Fuel=Trip Fuel Trip Fuel+11K Min Landing Fuel=Total Fuel Load If I get the FMC warning because I'm burning into my MLF, I need to do something NOW! You, of course, can make the MLF what you want. PMDG recommends 24K on Long Haul, 19K on Short Haul. But remember, burning fuel to carry fuel is not very economical."

[Bodo Mueller]

"The 744F of course is more economical than the 742F but still burns a lot of fuel, sometimes too much ....that is the reason why Lufthansa did not buy any 744F to replace their classic freighter. I belief the Airbus A380F will be the most efficiant freighter in future. Not sure if the 747-8F will be that good. However, calculation fuel for the PMDG 744F is a bit tricky as it varies from the PAX version significantly. I mostly add 10% of what FSBUILD calculates with wind data loaded by Active Sky. The insufficicant fuel message comes up if you get below the value you entered as reserve fuel calculated to the destination. So if you entered 11.0 as reserve and end up with 9.0 at landing somwhere in the last third of the route you will be bothered with that message all the time."

[cyoo eddie]

"I dont know how accurate this is, but what I do for the 744 is , distance/airspeed (I use 470) to give me the hours, then multiply by 24000 lbs, then add 50,000 for taxi, headwinds,etc. so 4000nm would be 8.51X24000 + 50000, would give me 254000 lbs of fuel, seems to work for me, I can land with around 30000, to 40000 lbs left. I seem to remember in the 742 not to land with less than 10,000 in the tanks. You can also use the 742 fuel calculator as well. In the pmdg manual, there is a longer explaination for fuel planning, but this gets me in the neigbourhood. Ralphs OPS system looks very promising, it calculates fuel for the 742 amoung other things,and from what I understand will probably be used for the 744 later as well : "

[Avwriter]

"According to PMDG's manual the formula is as follows: Minimum Landing fuel (24,000 lbs) + Alternate Fuel + one half of planned contingency fuel"

[nwadc10]

"The dispatch release/flight planner when re-released will offer accurate fuel burn estimate plus any reserve you need including contingency, alternate, holding, etc. and take into account winds aloft and the regulation below. It will be the last fuel planner you'll need for the 742 and 744 The 45 minutes reserve is required for domestic flights. You must be able to fly to your destination, fly to your alternate, and from there fly at least 45 more minutes at normal cruise fuel burn. For flights outside the US here's what the FAA regulation states(CFR 121.645): ...no person may release for flight or takeoff a turbine-powered airplane unless, considering wind and other weather conditions expected, it has enough fuel-- (1) To fly to and land at the airport to which it is released; (2) After that, to fly for a period of 10 percent of the total time required to fly from the airport of departure to, and land at, the airport to which it was released; (3) After that, to fly to and land at the most distant alternate airport specified in the flight release, if an alternate is required; and (4) After that, to fly for 30 minutes at holding speed at 1500 feet above the alternate airport (or the destination airport if no alternate is required) under standard temperature conditions ... The more unusual rule here is the 10 percent rule. If your flight is 10 hrs you must carry 1 hour of fuel reserve to satisfy that rule. On top of that you need be able to fly to your most distant alternate and hold over that airport at 1500 feet for 30 minutes. Of course all that is on top of Boeings minimum landing fuel per the manual and I don't know if Polar/Atlas also has their own minimum landing fuel. Maybe Craig can help us on that. I hope this takes away some of the mystery behind how much fuel is really required for international flights. Justin"

[Craig Applegate 1207]

"The Company Min landing fuel for Polar and Atlas is 10,500 Kilos at Destination and 7,000 kilos at Alternate."

[dave colavecchio]

"Justin touched on the 10% contigency fuel so i think I will try to clarify how that works in reality on a part 121 release. Craig feel free to add or correct me as i've been out of 121 dispatching for 9 years. A long haul 121 flight will generally be dispatched under a re-clear flight plan to lessen the 10% amount to get from point a to point b. I will give an example. A flight from KJFK-EDDF (a 7:30 ETE ) would require assuming a 22,000 lb avg burn a 10% contingency of 16,500 lbs. What the dispatcher will do is dispatch the aircraft to Shannon(a 6:00 ETE ) which would then require a 4400lb. contingency with a reclear flight plan from the rerelease point to the final destination.(about 2 hours from 20 west to EDDF) The flight crew would then have a predetermined fuel amount over 20 west or a coast in fix where he would have in his release a certain fuel figure from that point to continue to EDDF - in reality a second release. The dispatcher will monitor the flights progress by looking at their position reports and wait for the crew to get to the predetermined fix, where 95% of the time the crew will send a message to dispatch saying something like PAC602 RRLS ACCPTD 2204z 54N20W FOB 55.0. the dispatcher then knows they are going to continue. Aircraft rarely miss their reclear fuel load unless yhey are pusihng the range of the airplane. Weather at the final destination and wind busts are big in determining the outcome of a recleared flight that is close to the aircraft max. So there you can see how the airlines save money and weight while they operate more efficiently with less fuel. 85% of the total flight planned distance was the optimal distance for a reclear airport on a reclear flight plan. I know this is confusing, and pleaseask questions if you don't understand, I just don't want you guys to have to carry to much fuel and plan unnecessary tech stops... Also, flights from the U.S. can use use domestic reserves when flying to Canada, Mexico, and the Caribbean by using an exemption in their Operation Specification - I think it's B43."

[cyoo eddie]

":shock: Clear as mud there Dave.... I will have to re read that a few times, but do I understand correctly, the plane is loaded with the minimum fuel required to make the trip and to land with the company minimums. At a certain point in the route it is determined if they can make the rest of the trip and are redispatched to keep going, but if not stop for gas?? Sounds a little like playing with the numbers to keep the feds happy...."

[dave colavecchio]

"You definitely have the concept. It is a numbers game to satisfy the fed's - and it's legal. It's an easy concept to draw and explain- typing it is a little harder. The basis is that airlines don't want to carry the full 10%, so they break the 10% down into a shorter segment, thereby reducing the total needed to satisfy the 10%. If you were to reclear in my example,if the reclear point is 2 hours away the 10% would then be 4400 lbs (22,000 x 2 hrs x .10) plus fuel to the most distant alternate plus 30 minutes of holding at 1500 ft. Do you see how we just cut the total contingency at blockout from 16,500 lbs to a mere 4400 lbs? The 13,200 lbs of contingency fuel for KJFK-EINN would then be transferred into the burn from reclear point to EDDF on the flight plan. All we did was make a fuel check as we passed a gas station and saved 12,000 lbs.! That gives us either an extra 1/2 of flying, or @12k more pounds of payload. The airplane will probably not land with company minimums. I'd think the 747's probably land with between 30-40k lbs. depending on the wx. If one were to land a real 747 with 10k pounds, they'd be real gutsy. You are basically dealing with 2k pounds of usable fuel in each tank. A go around would definitely uncover a pump or two and you'd be looking at some flameouts..."

[mlegein]

Download the file crossatl.zip from Avsim. It's a 70-page document on cross-atlantic flights written by an Airbus 340-300 pilot. Section 2 covers Fuel and Re-release procedures. You'll find most answers in part 2.2 on pages 7-11.

[esurfman]

"

Download the file crossatl.zip from Avsim. It's a 70-page document on cross-atlantic flights written by an Airbus 340-300 pilot. Section 2 covers Fuel and Re-release procedures. You'll find most answers in part 2.2 on pages 7-11.

Or easier, use the fuel planner V2.01; easier http://www.farmboyzimsflightsims.com/Utilities.html"

[Craig Applegate 1207]

Pretty good explanation Dave. We do re-dispatches on just about all flag flights. It saves us fuel and allows us to carry more payload if needed. At 2 hours before the point of re-release we do a recalculation of his flight plan from his point of re-release to his destination and provide that to the crew. If we have enough fuel we continue. If we come up short due to the changing winds we come up with possible solutions. If we cant come up to something we land at our re-dispatch airport for fuel. On a flight from LAX-ICN we use either Narita or Anchorage as our initial aiports. The plane is tecnically dispatched to one of those. If we have the fuel at the point of re-release we go to ICN

[Bodo Mueller]

"

Pretty good explanation Dave. We do re-dispatches on just about all flag flights. It saves us fuel and allows us to carry more payload if needed. At 2 hours before the point of re-release we do a recalculation of his flight plan from his point of re-release to his destination and provide that to the crew. If we have enough fuel we continue. If we come up short due to the changing winds we come up with possible solutions. If we cant come up to something we land at our re-dispatch airport for fuel. On a flight from LAX-ICN we use either Narita or Anchorage as our initial aiports. The plane is tecnically dispatched to one of those. If we have the fuel at the point of re-release we go to ICN

Hi Craig, as english is not my native language....so if I understood correctly...for fuel planning according your example you pretend to fly from LAX to PANC and recalculate the rest of fuel from PANC to ICN? Why that?"

[Avwriter]

"Hey Craig, As long as we are getting into company nitty gritty, what are Polar's procedures for derated thrust in the 744F? Do they use an onboard laptop to calculate ambiant temp, or do they just use the TO,TO1,TO2 settings in the FMC? Or do they use both together?"