My company's manuals reflect what Jack and Matt have said. It's based on one engine inop diversion speed, still air & ISA conditions.

 

Ash Frew.

Well Spin and I have the same FOM, and I can confirm what he wrote. Whats interesting is that when I pull a sample of past flight plans with the same route (say SEA-HQM-A331-APACK) the EEP and EXP never fall in the same spot after I plot them on our charts. Its usually a 20 to 30 mile difference depending on those pesky East Pacific headwinds.

 

Is it possibe that the dispatcher is allowed to adjust for better single engine time performance?

You sure the EEP on the two different flight plans you are comparing are using the same airport?

 

JackColwill

I did ETOPS class in DEC and the instructor mentioned something about how the certification for ETOPS and day-to-day differ, but I think this remains the same. I think our old ETOPS planning charts even had the rings around the airports.

Good question. The alt airports are almost always SEA or SFO, and OGG or HNL once past CP. This is going to bug me all weekend. I may have to swing by dispatch Monday morning and pick their brains.

 

I use the 4th Edition (30 APR 10) plotting charts which I believe are still current, and they don't use rings at all for the westcoast side, and only use the 180min rings for the ANC-HI north pac side.

Ryan, is Rick P. still in the training department at Alaska?

According to his firstclass account info he is. And its shows he's online and working on a Saturday..

Ryan, is Rick P. still in the training department at Alaska?

I was doing some recurrent training on the wonderful company-issued ipad a few days ago. I recognized the narrator's voice, but it took a while before I could figure out who it was. . . it was Rick.

Last time I saw Rick at an AQP conference in Pheonix in 2009.

Rick was "Professer of ETOPS" at Aloha. Fun guy to fly with. I think he went to Alaska to help develop your ETOPS program. He saw the end coming at Aloha and decided to move on.

Tell him I said "Aloha!"

I dug through the FAA regs some more and it turns out that you only have to consider wind (and temperature) for ETOPS greater than 180 minutes. At or below 180 minutes you may use still air (and standard temperature). Personally I think I'd prefer it if the dispatcher on my flight did take into account that it would take longer than the approved time minus 15 minutes to reach an alternate due to wind, but the FAA says you don't have to.

For those interested in the legalese: AC120-42B and FAR 121.633 are what you want.

Thanks John.

Useful links above, thank you John!

 

"ETOPS. An airplane flight operation during which a portion of the flight is conducted beyond 60 minutes from an adequate airport for turbine-engine-powered airplanes with two engines, and beyond 180 minutes for turbine-engine-powered passenger-carrying airplanes with more than two engines. This distance is determined using an approved one-engine inoperative cruise speed under standard atmospheric conditions in still air"

Hi All,

 

On this topic I found the following link really useful (as well as showing how much is involved in dispatching these flights):

 

http://www.captainpilot.com/files/ETOPS/ETOPS%20Flight%20Operations%20Overview.pdf

 

I had been ignoring ETOPS up to now but realise now that Australian routes from YPPH to the east actually do need to take this into account. Time to do some learning ....

 

Cheers

 

James

Good question. The alt airports are almost always SEA or SFO, and OGG or HNL once past CP. This is going to bug me all weekend. I may have to swing by dispatch Monday morning and pick their brains.

 

I use the 4th Edition (30 APR 10) plotting charts which I believe are still current, and they don't use rings at all for the westcoast side, and only use the 180min rings for the ANC-HI north pac side.

 

Sounds like PANC-PHNL puts you beyond the 180 minute limit is that correct? If CYVR-PHNL doesn't that would explain why the EEP and EXP for Westjet routes are always the same, but why they move for Alaska.

A bit off topic, but not totally:

 

After all this interesting ETOPS stuff, I've bought a PHNL scenery in order to fly from KSJC to PHNL, simulating the Alaska Airlines 837 flight that departs San Jose 9:50am and arrrives PHNL 12:15 (flight time 5:25).

 

My question is about the departure from KSJC. All the SIDs going out of the airport lead to a very remote point from my intended route. I mean, neither of the available SIDs from KSJC really take me on my planned route, but to totallly different places, in totally different directions. What is the "usual" procedure when SIDs are not really practical, and flying them would significantly add to the flight time? I just don't think that pilots really do fly any of those SIDs when departing KSJC for PHNL - but I might be wrong. Also, in general, what is the usual departure procdure in similat cases, can pilots simply ignore the SIDs or just partially fly them? But mostly, I would be interested in this particular airport, KSJC.

 

My planned route:

KSJC OSI BEBOP R464 BITTA PHNL

 

By the way, I am gonna be departing KSJC between 1600Z and 1700Z - feel free to join me on VATSIM!