Flight Planning and Monitoring
What this domain tests
Flight Planning and Monitoring tests fuel policy, operational flight plans, in-flight replanning and monitoring. Questions often give a fuel breakdown and ask for the minimum required fuel or the remaining fuel at a point.
Core rules
- Fuel: taxi fuel + trip fuel + contingency (typically 5% of trip) + alternate fuel + final reserve + additional/extra. Final reserve for turbine aircraft is normally 30 minutes holding at 1,500 ft above the alternate.
- The operational flight plan must be amended when actual fuel, route or weather differs materially from the plan.
- Monitoring: compare actual fuel against planned fuel at each waypoint; a negative trend needs action before the final reserve is reached.
- Alternate selection depends on weather, runway serviceability and fuel; if no alternate is required, the destination must meet the planning minima.
- ICAO Annex 6 and MCAR Part 91 set the fuel rules for commercial transport.
Worked example
Trip fuel 4,000 kg, contingency 5% = 200 kg, alternate 800 kg, final reserve 1,200 kg (30 minutes at 2,400 kg/h), taxi 200 kg. Minimum fuel = 200 + 4,000 + 200 + 800 + 1,200 = 6,400 kg. If the aircraft parks with 6,200 kg, the flight cannot depart as planned without a fuel stop or a revised plan.
Traps
Treating contingency as 5% of total fuel rather than of trip fuel; counting the final reserve as usable for diversion; forgetting that taxi fuel is burned before takeoff; ignoring the increased burn from a lower cruise level.
Key habit
Write the fuel ladder vertically and add it twice. Most marks are lost in the order of the items, not the arithmetic.