Fuel gauge mystery

Like others have covered, your fuel burn will be the greatest during your initial climb and early phases of cruise because you’re at your heaviest weight. It requires a great deal of thrust to keep your aircraft aloft at these weights and at a speed your demanding. Because of this, you have your power set higher to maintain a given speed.

But do not worry. You might be showing that you’ll be a few hours short on fuel to your destination shortly after establishing cruise. As your aircraft burns fuel, you are reducing the weight of the aircraft. Because you are at a lesser weight, this requires less thrust to keep the aircraft aloft at your given speed.

Take this example: I departed on a flight that I know is 15hrs in length. But in the first 1hr of the flight, I might be showing 12 hrs of fuel at my current fuel burn/flow. This is because I’m still heavy. As I near my destination, I notice that I’ve got 4 hrs of fuel left. That’s at least another 4 hrs of flying past my destination.
Reasoning: Aircraft is lighter and as a result fuel burn lower because less thrust is needed to keep the aircraft flying at said altitude and speed.


There are a great deal of tutorials that cover “Fuel” related matters in the #tutorials section of the forum. These have been of help to others and I hope these can help you as well.

Fuel planning is discussed in this topic as well: 👇🏼

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