Fuel Group

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1       Introduction 

Fuel Group 

This topic covers the Fuel group on the Plan Screen. You will learn how each option in the group is used by the N-FP system. 

We estimate that this will take 10 minutes to complete.

2       Detailed Explanation 

Plan Screen - Fuel Group 

The Fuel Group offers manipulation of fuel-related fields that are required for effective flight planning.

Available fields:

■        Origin Fuel

■        Destination Taxi

■        Additional Fuel

■        Tankering Fuel

■        Ballast Fuel

■        Holding Fuel

■        2nd Hold Fuel

■        Minimum Landing Fuel / Minimum Landing Time

■        Reserve Policy

■        ETP Fuel Bias

■        Circuit Time

■        Penalty Fuel

■        Burn Bias (Climb, Cruise, Descent, and Hold)

■        IFR Fuel at Destination

■        Modified Reserve Interface

■        Origin and Destination Fuel Price

■        APU Burn Selection

■        Direct Operating Costs

■        Delay Costs.

 Click the Fuel >> button.

 Click the green arrow next to the Orig Taxi input field.

 Click the Time list item.

Origin Taxi Fuel/Time is editable via this field. Taxi Fuel can be displayed as taxi time (in minutes) or quantity of fuel as a weight for the origin airport.

When selected, the informational context arrow opens a menu displaying Fuel and Time options.

This value comes from the Airports interface, but can be modified. If Taxi Time is used, the value can automatically populate from the Taxi-Circuit Times interface.

Destination Taxi Fuel is always displayed in the Fuel Group.

 Enter 10 into the Orig Taxi field.

 Click the green arrow next to the Additional input field.

The Additional field allows users to specify a quantity of additional fuel as weight.  Default values can be configured in the Airline Code Parameter interface.

Clicking the green Informational Context Arrow opens a sub menu where users can type or select pre-populated reasons for the additional fuel.

Fuel may be identified as "Optional", meaning fuel is only added if possible, and will include only as much as possible without effecting payload.

 Click the 1st Additional Reason input field.

 Enter enroute wx into the 1st Additional Reason field.

 Click the next Additional Reason input field.

For the pre-populated Additional Reasons, the quantity of fuel, and whether or not it is Optional can be configured ahead of time via Airline Code Parameters.

The default configuration can be changed on a flight-by-flight basis by the dispatcher.

 Enter atc into the next Additional Reason field.

 Click the Fuel input field.

 Enter 500 into the Fuel field.

The individual Additional fuel figures will be combined into a single amount of Additional fuel when the sub menu closes. This total is no longer editable.

 Click the green arrow next to the Tankerage input field.

 Click the Optimum list item.

The Tankering field also has an expandable sub menu, again accessed from the informational context arrow. This menu is used to select the type of tankering the user wishes the system to perform.

Options include:

■        Fixed Tankerage - Which allows a user to set a specific amount of fuel to be uplifted at the origin, in addition to the required flight plan fuel.

■        Maximum Tankerage - Which will automatically add fuel until MTOW is reached or the maximum volume of the fuel tank is met. The Maximum Tankerage will not superseed Payload.

■        Optimum Tankerage - Which will automatically add the optimum amount of tankerage fuel while providing the user with a tankerage table for additional information. (Tankerage Table display may require a flight plan format change)

■        Table - Which will provide a table showing the tankerage analysis at 0%, 20%, 40%, 60%, 80%, and Maximum tankerage. To display the table, a flight format change may be required.

■        Departure Fuel - Which allows a user to set a static value for total departure fuel. All fuel beyond the required flight plan fuel will be considered tankerage.

■        Arrival Fuel - Which allows a user to set a static value for total arrival fuel.  The system will plan to arrive at destination with that fuel value. All fuel beyond the required flight plan fuel, will be considered tankerage.

■        Next Ramp Tankerage - Which will automatically attempt to add enough fuel to this leg to meet the departure fuel requirement of the next leg planned with this aircraft.  (The next flight leg must be computed, and have a fuel requirement, for this functionality to work successfully.)

■        Multi-Leg Tanker Goal - which will analyze the flight legs before and after the current leg to reduce or avoid fuel uplift at a specific, user defined, station.

■        Multi-Leg Tanker Count - This is  an extension of the Multi-Leg Tanker Goal. It enables the user to put the count of legs in the text field, where they want to load zero or minimum fuel if possible. The locations are not considered on the way.

■        Optimum Multi-Leg Tanker - Which will automatically analyze the flight legs before and after the current leg to determine if there is an opportunity to tanker fuel across multiple legs for economic savings.

 

If NextRamp, Maximum, Optimum, or Table tankerage are selected, the tankerage field is then deactivated, and a specific value cannot be entered.

The Ballast Fuel field allows a user to specify a quantity of fuel to be used as ballast.

 

Ballast Fuel can be configured as a default entry in the Aircraft Characteristics menu.

 Click the green arrow next to the Hold input field.

The Holding Fuel field allows the user to enter a quantity of holding fuel, as either a weight or a time.

 

The informational context arrow expands a sub menu allowing the user to configure whether the holding fuel is a measure of weight or time. "At Altn" allows a user to set the holding fuel burn over the alternate, if an alternate airport is used.  If "At Altn" is not selected, the holding fuel burn will be calculated at the destination. The "Optional" selection only adds as much holding fuel as is possible without effecting the payload.

The 2nd Hold field allows a second entry for holding fuel, with all of the functionality of the primary holding fuel field.

 

Fuel can be entered as a weight or a time.

The informational context arrow expands a sub menu allowing the user to configure whether the holding fuel is a measure of weight or time.  "At Altn" allows a user to set the holding fuel burn over the alternate, if an alternate airport is used.  If "At Altn" is not selected, the holding fuel burn will be calculated at the destination.  The "Optional" selection only adds as much holding fuel as is possible without effecting the payload.

 Click the MLF/MLT input field.

The Minimum Landing Fuel and Minimum Landing Time fields allows users to enter the minimum landing fuel for the aircraft. A default value can be configured via the Aircraft Characteristics interface. If a default value is not configured, the system will be set to the structural minimum landing value.

 Enter 60 into the MLF/MLT field.

 Click the Reserve dropdown button.

 Click the green arrow next to the Reserve dropdown button.

The Reserve Fuel field allows a user to specify either a reserve policy, a vised amount of reserve fuel as a weight, or a fixed amount of reserve fuel as a time in minutes.

The Reserve policies can be accessed via drop down. 

Additional information for the selected reserve policy is displayed here. 

 Click the Policy dropdown button.

 Click the Percent list item.

While the reserve policies can be configured to be a static percentage of the flight time, the system also allows users to enter an ad hoc percentage on a flight-by-flight basis.

 Click the Percent input field.

 Enter 5 into the Percent field.

Through the sub menu, users can select whether or not the system should consider the reserve fuel to be consumed enroute.

 Click the ETP Bias input field.

The ETP Bias field allows a user to enter a bias to use when calculating the ETP fuel burn. This is entered as a percentage, with a valid range of -10 to 40.

The Circuit Time fields allow a user to specify an Origin and/or Destination circuit time. By default, the Circuit Time comes from the Airports interface.

 Click the green arrow next to the Penalty input field.

 Click the Bias Percentage list item.

The Penalty field allows users to enter a fixed penalty or bias percentage.The sub menu to select percentage or fixed fuel value is accessed via the informational context arrow.

The Burn Bias fields include 4 fields: climb, cruise, descent, and hold.
The first field is the climb burn bias, followed by cruise, descent and hold burn bias.
The values entered are represented as a percentage and are added or subtracted to the existing biases in the Aircraft Characteristic Database or the Airline Code Parameters.
The valid entry range is from -10 to 25 percent, the field turns pink for invalid entries.

IFR Dest: IFR Destination Time - This field (the left of the two IFR Dest fields) allows you to specify the amount of destination IFR (Instrument Flight Rules) time. By default, this value comes from the Aircraft Characteristics database.

IFR Dest: IFR Destination Fuel - This field (the right of the two IFR Dest fields) allows you to specify the amount of destination IFR (Instrument Flight Rules) fuel. By default, this value comes from the Aircraft Characteristics database.

Mod Resv: Modified Reserve Waypoints - These four drop-down lists provide a user with valid waypoints to select as the first modified starting waypoint, first modified ending waypoint, the second modified starting waypoint, and the second modified ending waypoint, respectively.  These fields are only accessible when the "Mod Reserves" Reserve Policy is selected.

Origin Fuel Price/Currency/Unit - These fields allow a user to override the Fuel Cost database entries to compute, on a per-flight basis, origin fuel costs.

Destination Fuel Price/Currency/Units - These fields allow a user to override the Fuel Cost database entries to compute, on a per-flight basis, destination fuel costs.

Calculate APU Burn - This checkbox allows a user to specify whether or not an auxiliary power unit burn calculation will be performed.

DOC/HR: Direct Operating costs per hour - This field allows a user to specify a direct operating cost per hour. The value is populated from the Direct Operating Costs interface if a value is present. The direct operating cost per hour is calculated and may be displayed on the flight plan.

Delay/HR: Delay costs per hour - This field allows a user to specify a delay cost per hour and the currency for the cost.

■        When selected, the informational context arrow opens a text box displaying Max Cost and Delay Threshold.

■        Max Cost is the maximum cost to be used. This value will be used even if the actual delay cost exceeds this value.

■        Delay Threshold is the time in minutes when delay costs begin to occur.