Flight Planning: Route, Fuel, and Alternate Planning
This domain tests whether you can build a fuel plan that satisfies the regulation and a route plan that survives the weather and the NOTAMs.
Fuel policy components
- Taxi fuel, trip fuel, contingency fuel, alternate fuel, final reserve, additional fuel, discretionary fuel.
- Contingency is usually 5% of trip fuel, reduced to 3% when a suitable en-route alternate is available.
- Final reserve is typically 30 minutes holding at 1,500 ft above the aerodrome in ISA conditions.
- Alternate fuel covers go-around, climb, cruise, descent and approach at the planned landing mass.
Route and alternate planning
- Route choice considers winds, ATS structure, PBN, airspace, NOTAMs and, where relevant, ETOPS and equal-time points.
- An alternate is suitable only if its forecast, at ETA ±1 hour, is above the applicable minima and the runway, approaches and services are available.
Worked example
Trip 320 kg; contingency 5% = 16 kg; alternate 45 kg; final reserve 30 min at 240 kg/h = 120 kg; taxi 8 kg; discretionary 30 kg. Total = 320 + 16 + 45 + 120 + 8 + 30 = 539 kg.
Traps
- Taking contingency as a percentage of total fuel rather than trip fuel.
- Computing alternate fuel at takeoff mass instead of landing mass.
- Forgetting taxi fuel because it is burned before the trip.
- Calling any aerodrome with weather above minima a suitable alternate.