Fuel Reserve Pentaly ??

[unimike]

I got pentalized because I did not carry at least 45 minute fuel reserve ??? When I was planning the flight the flight plan calls for appoximately
12,000pounds of fuel so I loaded 16,000pounds worth of fuel so while on the flight I got slammed with heavy headwinds which required me to use the
fuel reserves so I don't understand why I got punished for using the fuel reserve ?

Flight regulations require that you have sufficient fuel reserves upon landing (45 mn); you only had reserves for 00h25 of flight. (-300)



Post Edited ( 10-20-05 08:42 )

[Jackal]

this penatly can be disabled if you don't like it. this has been discussed before. A forum search should bring up the answers you seek

[unimike]

ah, okay I will run some searches and thanks.

[olseric]

I'm asssuming that you calculated a fuel rate of burn at 4000 lbs/hr for a 3 hour trip then?

If not, we need to talk.

[unimike]

olseric wrote:
I'm asssuming that you calculated a fuel rate of burn at 4000 lbs/hr for a 3 hour trip then?

If not, we need to talk.

haha this trip is not even a 3 hour trip its about a 1.5 hour trip so it should not have had burned the reserves though :-p

[Shady]

One thought crossed my mind at this moment. I have always a reserve fuel on board but I don't fly online lately.
What happens when I fly online, load fuel with reserve, plan the trip for three hours (so my fuel is for 3:45 at
least) but due to heavy traffic, holdings, ATC vectoring and so on the flight takes 3:20. So after landi I'm 25 minutes
short and the program will penalise me. Is that correct?

This is kinda unfair, isn't it? I had reserve and the reserve was partly used, because for some reasons the flight took
longer than originally planned. Shouldn't it be this way, that the program calculates planned and actual filght time and
computes then the fuel quota which was burned acoordingly?

I don't think that disabling fuel reserve control solves this problem, it's just a shortcut that doesn't add to reality.

Just a thought, though

Best regards

[olseric]

Well, in theory, you should load: Trip fuel (enough for destination), reserve fuel (1:00 min), taxi fuel (based upon planned conditions),
holding fuel (if you know you're going to be in a hold for 20 mins because of heavy traffic, etc), alternate destination fuel (which typically is
the reserve).

[bdlong]

What are the winds showing at altitude? As you are already aware, a stronger than anticipated headwind will use up more fuel. If it is substantially
off, you could easily go into your reserves.

I recently noticed that I had heavy winds - from FL180 up to FL350 were all showing an 80 knot headwind. Out of curiosity, I went to
http://usairnet.com to check what the winds aloft really were - FL180 showed 20 knots while the strongest up to FL350 was only showing 35 knots. I
cancelled out of weather update and set it manually. Since I am mainly flying towards the west, (from the East coast), I almost always have a head
wind. For the last several flights I've been setting the weather manually since FS9 is so unrealistic in this area.

Dean

[TonyH]

For the last several flights I've been setting the weather manually since FS9 is so unrealistic in this area.

Have you considered ASV, that does a pretty good job with accurate winds aloft, and you can import your flightplan to get the winds aloft
forecast for your route to help with fuel and time planning.