whats a good amount of fuel to land with?

[FS737Pilot 12]

for a 1200nm flight not over water, is 7,000lbs about right at touchdown? Im not looking at being perfect with 30min reserve etc ( i dont even know how to calculate that). Mitch Bowman

[Meese 5]

The perfect amount of fuel to land with is your reserves (Fuel for holding, alternate and those 30-40 minutes of extra) plus whatever you saved in during the trip.

[FS737Pilot 12]

The perfect amount of fuel to land with is your reserves (Fuel for holding, alternate and those 30-40 minutes of extra) plus whatever you saved in during the trip.

What page in the PMDG manuals is fuel planning on?

[MarkW 1,490]

As an estimate the -800NG burns 840 US Gallons of fuel per hour (5771 lbs/hour). So for a 2 hour trip you can roughly estimate 12,000 lbs for flying + 3000 for reserve + another 4000 for alternate + 500 for taxi so about 19,500 lbs. That should be more than enough for a comfortable flight and leave you with about 7000 lbs at the end. If you want more detailed plans you will need to invest in TOPCAT software. Mark.

[jbassue 181]

As an estimate the -800NG burns 840 US Gallons of fuel per hour (5771 lbs/hour). So for a 2 hour trip you can roughly estimate 12,000 lbs for flying + 3000 for reserve + another 4000 for alternate + 500 for taxi so about 19,500 lbs. That should be more than enough for a comfortable flight and leave you with about 7000 lbs at the end. If you want more detailed plans you will need to invest in TOPCAT software. Mark.

I've really got to think about getting TOPCAT :(

[Flexman 30]

I've really got to think about getting TOPCAT

Or get fsbuild. It's much better for flight planning with fuel and winds.

[willywonka 36]

TOPCAT doesn't plan the flight. It has a fuel estimate function which is ok at best. Its main purpose is to calculate takeoff and landing data. FSbuild is best at flight and fueling planning (so far).

[G550flyer 1,007]

Holding fuel is normally(FAA) 45 minutes. Your alternate depends on where you are diverting to. My company restricts us to land with no less than holding fuel. If you want to be realistic, start at page 21.7. Use your ground distance along your route and convert it to an air distance(based on head or tail wind). Use your charts if you have them. Take that distance and enter the long range cruise chart. Use the altitude that you would like to climb to for cruise. Save that number. Add the fuel from your long range chart to your zero fuel weight. Now you have a reference landing weight. Now enter the short trip fuel and range chart with your alternate distance. convert it to an air distance and enter the fuel and time required portion with your ref landing weight. Now add this fuel to your ref landing weight. Now take the new ref landing weight and enter the holding chart. Use 5,000 or 10,000ft. Now take this fuel and multiply it by .75. So a fuel flow of 9000 will be about 6,750 pounds for holding. Now add the holding fuel to your ref landing weight and you now have a take-off weight. So zfw+trip fuel+alternate fuel+holding fuel will get you to a take-off weight. Now add 1500 for start, taxi and takeoff and you have a ramp weight. Now you can add more fuel for mom and the kids for weather deviations or anticipated delays. This is the old school way of doing things. My company use jetplan for flight planning. You can use topcat and other flight planning programs. This is just a quick way to be realistic. If you are going to an island destination like PHNL, i would double the holding fuel. If you are going to be more than an hour from a navaid, add 10% of the fuel along that portion of the route. This is a bit long but I hope it helps. I still remember the days where we manually did the flight plan using flight charts and a performance manual.

[MarkW 1,490]

Good info Rick, going to give that a try on my next NGx flight. Mark.

[henri5 16]

The complicated part is not figuring out how much you need to land (Zero would be ideal-but chancy), but knowing how much you need to NOT land (i.e. to get where you are going and fly to an alternate if you can't land there. I go for 1/3 for a short flight, 2/3 for a medium flight, and full for a long flight, and I always put the number 5 in the reserve slot. Of course, if you run low the simulator will tell you to press contr-x to get refueled in the air, but don't try that in a real plane (also note that real planes don't have a PAUSE button)...

[victorlima01 2]

Best combination in my honest opinion for flight planning purposes that will give you very accurate figures is the Topcat+ ASE + FSbuild combo. FSbuild will take into account winds aloft provided by ASE wihich are pretty darn accurate when compared to real world data. Not only that, but takeoff weight and cruise level as well. The fuel consumption profile that they have available for the queen is actually very crappy but the NG one is very accurate. I tend to land within100-200 kgs of the fuel estimate derived from FSbuild. And Topcat for takeoff perfomance is simply off the charts. I just wich they´d update the NG profile so I could start using my SFP 800 from Gol Airlines...

[blueskydriver 0]

Using TopCat and it works great and that you can send the data directly to FSX without a reload is even better. You will have to look at what PMDG NGX is using for weight and balance, and then match TopCat to it. In other words, sync the two to make sure they're using the same data. Also, it has not been mentioned above, but no matter where you fly too there is going to be a landing weight limit for the aircraft and a landing weight limit for the runways (not all, but most because of how they're made-surface, etc.). You'll see another function in TopCat and that is the D-Rate takeoffs (read about this). The point is about d-rate, is that it can affect take-off speeds and fuel usage (not much likely, but it does), as well as saving on the "Wear and Tear" of the engines. Finally, if you use the ACARS within TopCat, there is supposed to be a way to import the data into the CDU (like real dispatch operations work). Haven't used it yet, but plan too soon... BSD