Crews,

Very soon we will have the full set of flight release documents availabe for you. There will be a few changes to the standard issue FOC release to make it a little more user friendly and to modify the fuel section to comply with US/FAR 121 standards.

FUEL CALCULATION:
BIAS 1000
TAXI 441
KABQ 10566 01.31
ALT NONE 00.00
RSV 4755 00.45
EXTRA 0000 00.00
HOLD 1033 00.15
**********************
MIN 16795 02.31


As you can see, this is a similar format to our previous release, and should be pretty straightforward. Fuel burn from MCI to ABQ is 10,566 lbs as shown and 1 hour and 31 minutes flying time. All MCA releases will be planned as a standard of No Alternate, 15 minutes hold fuel, and no extra. Min fuel at pushback shows 16, 795 lbs with 2 hours 31 minutes endurance.

The fuel/weights have also been modified:

WEIGHT/FUEL BREAK DOWN
ZFW......................132983 134482
T/O MIN................16355.....41288
PLANNED TOW.......149338....162040
ENROUTE BURN.....10566
PLANNED LDW.......138772....142198
ARRIVAL FOB.........5789

Next will be the alternate info:

.......DIST....BURN..TIME
-ELP 220NM 3995 00.43
-COS 269NM 4647 00.53
-PHX 310NM 5408 01.01
-DEN 329NM 5415 01.03

And your wind correction info. Interpolation may be used for winds less than 50 kts, winds between 50 and 100 kts, and winds over 100 kts.

-BURN/TIME WITH 050 KT HEADWIND: 12421/01.48
-BURN/TIME WITH 100 KT HEADWIND: 15196/02.15

And, lastly the hold fuel info.

-HOLD FUEL
15MIN: 1034
30MIN: 2068
45MIN: 3100
60MIN: 4134

The Route/Flight Plan/Waypoint section will remain unchanged so that you will still have the long-form nav plan at your disposal.

We believe this new format will be a significant improvement and allow for actual fuel summary breakdown in accordance with FAR 121 requirements, as well as more accurate fuel planning since flight crews will soon be making real-time pre-departure adjustments to the min fuel required. This philosophy is also in alignment with FAR's.

121.533 - Responsibility for operational control: Domestic operations.
(b) The pilot in command and the aircraft dispatcher are jointly responsible for the preflight planning, delay, and dispatch release of a flight in compliance with this chapter and operations specifications.

121.535 - Responsibility for operational control: Flag operations.
(b) The pilot in command and the aircraft dispatcher are jointly responsible for the preflight planning, delay, and dispatch release of a flight in compliance with this chapter and operations specifications.

Any questions or feedback on these procedure changes please feel free to ask or post a comment.

Mike C

Thanks Mike... Nicely done!!


Jeff

Great stuff Mike! This will put the crews back in the loop!

Sounds excellent to me! And those of us with ActiveSky or a similar program can get a pretty good idea of the fuel and cruise adjustments required for a given route to meet fuel requirements and ETAs (or striking a compromise, as the case may be). Doing it right might require a bit more preflight planning than some are used to, but that's pretty real too. I'm sure there are quite a few instances when the flight crew spends more time hashing things out with the dispatcher and doing their flight planning than it actually takes to fly the route...

As usual, Mike, I am amazed at the amount of effort you (and the rest of the staff) are putting into making our flights that bit more realistic, even turning a setback into an improvement.

Thanks again, boy am I glad I came back !

Eric