Hey so im flying the A330 Neo from WMKK-PHNL, a 12:40 Hrs. route but im on low fuel despite having filled 14 hours of fuel…i had to turn off one engine for saving fuel on my approach in PHNL just to avoid a divert and now i can make it with 10 mins. to spare…i was cruising at FL350, not too heavy, N1 was below 100% cruise speed was Mach 0.82
What did i do wrong?
Thanks!
When you say that you’ve brought along an extra hour of fuel, did you use the flight time as the referencing point in the weight and balance tab?
Yea 14 hours on weights and balances tab…estimated flight time was around 12:46 mins. to be exact, i landed safely now and have remaining 1 minute of fuel left (104kg), turned on second engine on final…
Given the very arbitrary nature of the estimated flight time given in the weight and balance tab, I would not rely on that to determine how much fuel you’re going to need. Your best bet is to look at other websites such as fpltoif.com which should provide you with all appropriate weights for the ideal flight.
Not to mention, winds are something you must account for. Stronger than usual headwinds or weaker than usual tailwinds are always going to make your flights longer than usual, not to mention, diversion and final reserve planning is also something you should be doing for the safest possible outcome.
Yea i did get the fpl from fpltoif…i guess i’ll carry 30 mins. more fuel on long hauls just to be on the safer side
Thanks for your help!
Word of advice: Planning your fuel as a unit of time, instead of an amount will only lead to problems.
14 hours of fuel is such an arbitrary amount, so many variables are being overlooked. I recommend that you check out @LordWizrak’s suggestion. FPL2IF is a great intro to the flight planning process.
Trust the fuel figures given in weight, not time.
Will do next time, thanks!
If im honest, fpltoif.com adds WAYYYYYYY too much extra fuel for a trip. I landed at Singapore from Heathrow with 2 hours extra fuel, even though i said to plan for just 60min. Its not totally reliable. The in-app fuel does perfectly fine as long as you account an extra 20min to whatever it is you were originally going to add. (Plan for 1 hour extra? Make it 1hr20 extra and you will be fine)
Thats what i did this time…for 12:46 mins. I added 14 hours of fuel
Let’s say that flying from London to Singapore is a 13 hour flight, and let’s plan for how much fuel we should be taking just like the real world (minus some accuracy, of course).
For the flight, you’re going to need 13 hours of fuel, and with how contingency fuel is planned for, you’re going to need about 5%. That gives you about an additional 40 minutes of fuel.
Now consider that you’re going to need to plan to divert to a suitable airport that isn’t Singapore Changi, let’s say Kuala Lumpur, that’s about an hour of flight time. At this point, you’re going to need about an hour and 40 minutes of additional fuel.
Now, let’s consider your final reserve fuel. This is usually about 30-45 minutes worth of flight time. Let’s be a little optimistic, and use 30 minutes here. By this point, you’re planning for the 13 hour flight, as well as another 2 hours and 10 minutes of flight with your contingency, alternate and final reserves.
So to summarise, no, that’s not “WAYYYYYYY too much extra fuel”, as you’ve described, but rather adequate considering what you should be planning for.
I mean yea your right, but even then the website doesnt plan for alternates, if i do put an alternate in, that is an hour away, it will then add yet another hour that i dont need. I dont need 3 hours of extra fuel, especially if it is a short(ish) taxi
I use SimBrief and create a custom profile for each aircraft. Unfortunately, SimBrief doesn’t have the A330neo in there, but I made one for the A330-300. After putting in all of IF’s weights and capacities, it overestimated fuel burn, so I had to reduce it a little bit (odds are it’s still a little high, I have yet to fly a flight with it since making those changes). Here is the link to the profile for anyone interested, and I have plenty more mostly-accurate ones where this came from. It seems you need a SimBrief/Navigraph account to view this unfortunately.
https://www.simbrief.com/system/dispatch.php?sharefleet=125882_1645953093970
SimBrief has yet to let me down in terms of flight planning; I’d highly recommend it
Thanks! I’ll try it out for my next flight
This topic was automatically closed 90 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.