Ask The Pilot

[JessicaTam]

On Friday QF37 (A330) was cancelled and 120 pax were moved onto EK405 (A380). How many extra pax added to your flight after you load fuel would trigger you to order more fuel?

 

[jb747]

On Friday QF37 (A330) was cancelled and 120 pax were moved onto EK405 (A380). How many extra pax added to your flight after you load fuel would trigger you to order more fuel?

120 extra passengers weigh approximately 12 tonnes. Over an 8 hour flight, that would burn about 2.5-3 tonnes more than originally planned. That is a large variation. If it happened to one of my flights, I would be unlikely to able to accommodate that much extra burn (preflight), and would need to load the extra.

Basically, any change in loading late in the event causes fuel to be removed from the flight's 'variable' fuel. That will be 10%, but only to a maximum defined by each airline. Basically, a few tonnes variable at the most. It's a rare flight when I don't add a little fuel, and I can normally accommodate any small last minute changes from my additional.

The figure of "how much" is like that bit of string...it will vary from flight to flight. If the weather at destination is benign, and my time of arrival unlikely to give any holding, then I will have a little flexibility. If I'm looking at fog, and trying to hold an alternate, then the weight of the fuel might be more important to me than the carriage of the passengers. I guess that if you're talking a few hundred kgs, I can probably accommodate it, but once we're into tonnes, then bring back the refuelling truck.

 

[JessicaTam]

Thanks jb.

 

[747sp]

Hi jb. For a A380 what is the smallest amount of fuel you would request for a top up?

 

[jb747]

Hi jb. For a A380 what is the smallest amount of fuel you would request for a top up?

The smallest amount of fuel that I order is 100 kgs.

On those flights that are tight for fuel (mostly QF94), we'll keep the tanker hooked up. We give them a fuel order, but they remain attached at the the end of loading that order. Then, if the zero fuel weight goes down (i.e. the no shows), we'll add fuel as required.

If, on the other hand, we were on a flight that had weight to spare, and the zero fuel weight has just jumped up...if I'd ordered additional to start with (I mostly do), I'd probably live with it. If I'd ordered nothing, we are back to that 100 kgs.....

 

[Flying Fox]

Can and do fuel trucks ever remove fuel from aircraft?

If not, how is fuel removed (I'm assuming that this is a real scenario)?

 

[andmiz]

Can and do fuel trucks ever remove fuel from aircraft?

If not, how is fuel removed (I'm assuming that this is a real scenario)?

Yep. Fuel trucks can defuel aircraft. There's restrictions upon it though. In most scenarios, fuel is being purchased directly from a fuel supplier when being loaded onto an aircraft, however sometimes it's coming from airline owned supplies. If it's being purchased from a fuel supplier it's likely they won't want to accept it back. Defuelling is common for maintenance, such as when the tanks need inspections or actions taken.
For us, we can only use 'reuse' defuelled fuel if it's come off a company aircraft, it hasn't been back to the fuel-farm, hasn't sat in the fuel tanker for longer than 24 hours, and still meets all quality checks.

 

[jb747]

In practice, on the line, the aircraft are never defuelled. If we are given too much (i.e. a slight overload, or the ZFW has gone up, without us being told in time), then it will be quicker to simply burn it. Four engines, idling at 700 kg/hour will fix most overloads quickly enough. Not green by any means, but the simplest, and quickest way of resolving the issue. On the other hand, it comes up so rarely as to be barely worth consideration.

 

[Boris spatsky]

Can and do fuel trucks ever remove fuel from aircraft?

If not, how is fuel removed (I'm assuming that this is a real scenario)?

I have certainly used defuelling a number of times in the military on the Herc - generally when the task has changed after filling up to the gunnels on long legs - you might need to defuel due to the destination being closer than planned and the landing at that destination being therefore over max landing weight. Alternatively, the cargo load changes (ie they add cargo) and you have to defuel to make sure you don't exceed max takeoff weight. This just eats into your available holding time at destination.

The other time I have done it is when the aircraft became unserviceable on start when full of fuel on an early morning task. Knowing the fix would take most of the day and the temperature was expected to get much hotter, we defuelled to make sure that the fuel tanks did not vent all over the tarmac.

Never done it in a jet but have come close once or twice. It's not as simple as it seems as only some refuel trucks have the defuelling capability from my experience (at least military ones). So they have to find it, check it is serviceable, run some defuel tests before they can even contemplate it.

 

[Altair]

Do not forget that due to the fuel pipe break at Auckland we saw Qantas fly some aircraft to AKL to transfer fuel to the Jetconnect and Jetstar narrowbodies. There are a couple of photos showing the defuel/transfer process from the QF 747-438ER just using gravity to transfer the fuel not a truck's pump.
Qantas uses 747 to deliver extra fuel to Auckland on Australian Aviation

 

[jb747]

Do not forget that due to the fuel pipe break at Auckland we saw Qantas fly some aircraft to AKL to transfer fuel to the Jetconnect and Jetstar narrowbodies. There are a couple of photos showing the defuel/transfer process from the QF 747-438ER just using gravity to transfer the fuel not a truck's pump.

I wouldn’t assume that it was ‘just gravity’. The aircraft has 20 or so pumps for moving the fuel around.

 

[flychrisfly]

What's the quickest you can land after a go-around assuming no ATC or traffic restrictions?

 

[jb747]

What's the quickest you can land after a go-around assuming no ATC or traffic restrictions?

A visual circuit would take about 4-5 minutes.

 

[eric2011]

A visual circuit would take about 4-5 minutes.

To us un-initiated people, it would be: gain some altitude, turn left, turn left, then for the down wind leg a little bit of level flight, turn left, turn left and land. Is it really that simple. Could you please run through some of the 1000's of thing you would have to do

p.s I intentionally over simplified things

 

[AviatorInsight]

To us un-initiated people, it would be: gain some altitude, turn left, turn left, then for the down wind leg a little bit of level flight, turn left, turn left and land. Is it really that simple. Could you please run through some of the 1000's of thing you would have to do

p.s I intentionally over simplified things

It’s not as involved as you might think. I’ve actually had 2 go arounds in 2 weeks. First one, we were trying to make curfew but had everything going against us. Second one was a windshear warning at 500ft in SYD.

Well, as you alluded to, pushed the thrust levers forward and gained some altitude, got a positive rate and retracted the gear. Next we retracted the flaps, made a left turn to join the circuit (usually just one continuous turn), completed the after take off checklist, made a PA to explain why we went around. Do the descent and approach checklists, another turn onto base, start slowing up again and taking flaps as normal. Start the descent at the same time and when ready drop the gear and do the landing checklist once all the flaps are out. One last turn onto final and line her up. Conduct the best landing ever and have everyone clapping.

 

[jb747]

....Conduct the best landing ever and have everyone clapping.

That's the bit I keep messing up....

 

[flyer89]

JB,

Is the QF63/64 considered a ‘junior route’? I understand why it wouldn’t be on the top of the crews list given the choice or is it more the fact that everyone has different things that they prefer?

 

[mjt57]

JB, Qantas has a piece on Facebook about its new B787 and an FO who's talking about it. He says that he's involved in pilot training (with a cross over to a simulator). I thought that the Captains did the training. What would his role be?

 

[jb747]

JB, Qantas has a piece on Facebook about its new B787 and an FO who's talking about it. He says that he's involved in pilot training (with a cross over to a simulator). I thought that the Captains did the training. What would his role be?

In the video? Never seen him before, so I don't have any idea of his position in the system. FOs are used for some of the SO training in the sims.

 

[jb747]

Is the QF63/64 considered a ‘junior route’? I understand why it wouldn’t be on the top of the crews list given the choice or is it more the fact that everyone has different things that they prefer?

Quite the opposite. In my time on the 747, I was only able to get one trip to SAfrica. and that only came to me because a much more senior pilot had to drop the trip.

I'm told that the golfers love the place. The food and wine are also good. It's also a relatively short trip (4 days), but which includes a lot of flying hours. It attracts around 8 credited hours per day. So if that was all you did on a roster, you'd only work for about 20 days. London, on the other hand, would require about 30 days. Most people eventually come to the realisation that your time at home is the most important thing, so senior trips are pretty much invariably the high density ones.