March 6Mar 6 1 hour ago, Farlis said: Just to add to this: A Loadsheet only contains the exact amount of fuel you need to get to the runway and take off legally without any margins. As soon as anything takes longer, APU running longer, taxi taking longer, you will risk arriving at the runway with less than legal fuel. So to properly simlate fuel loading you should always add more fuel than the loadsheet has calculated. That's whay simply taking the simbrief fuel and not changing the value to about half a ton more, is not realistic. The flight plan fuel includes contingency fuel (CONT line, just below the TRIP fuel), meant to cover unforeseen factors. You are legally allowed to use it after commencement of a flight (pushback/ENG start). In Europe it is either 5% of the planned TRIP fuel or 5 minutes of flight at 1500 ft over the destination in ISA conditions (whichever is greater, with a minimum value of about 200 Kg in any case for an A320). If you only get minimal delays (longer taxi, slightly longer vectors, etc) you should be fine with this CONT fuel and still land with your ALTN (Alternate fuel) + FINRES (Final Reserve Fuel) intact. Of course as soon as you foresee a potential problem while planning your flight (probable weather avoidance, traffic delay, weather delay, wrong runway planned in regards to changing weather, unrealistic FL, etc) then you should take extra fuel to cover that. But on a CAVOK day flying to an uncrowded airport with the OFP being correctly planned, I often load OFP fuel (rounded up to the nearest hundred Kg) IRL
March 6Mar 6 2 hours ago, Farlis said: Just to add to this: A Loadsheet only contains the exact amount of fuel you need to get to the runway and take off legally without any margins. As soon as anything takes longer, APU running longer, taxi taking longer, you will risk arriving at the runway with less than legal fuel. So to properly simlate fuel loading you should always add more fuel than the loadsheet has calculated. That's whay simply taking the simbrief fuel and not changing the value to about half a ton more, is not realistic. Our OFPs at work cover all of this. We add extra for deicing, long taxi, Hotel Mode running... all onto the fuel load. We have a minimum brake release fuel, which is the number that the parking brake has to be let go by. We also have a minimum divert fuel, which is the number that you're bailing out to your alternate at. Which came in handy for me a few days ago after holding for almost two hours waiting for a blizzard to clear up, which it never did. It was stunning when we got to our alternate though!
March 6Mar 6 Author 1 hour ago, ATRguy said: Our OFPs at work cover all of this. We add extra for deicing, long taxi, Hotel Mode running... all onto the fuel load. We have a minimum brake release fuel, which is the number that the parking brake has to be let go by. We also have a minimum divert fuel, which is the number that you're bailing out to your alternate at. Which came in handy for me a few days ago after holding for almost two hours waiting for a blizzard to clear up, which it never did. It was stunning when we got to our alternate though! That is awesome! 7950X3D | RTX 4090 | 96GB DDR5 | 4K G-Sync | Win11 Pro
March 6Mar 6 Author Flying from Denver to Vancouver yesterday (IRL), and I noticed the pilots did not fire up the left engine (737-800) until we were half way from the gate to the runway. Single engine taxiing is something i did not know. Learn something new literally every day. Fuel planning is something else i need to explore more. Nothing like flight simulation. 7950X3D | RTX 4090 | 96GB DDR5 | 4K G-Sync | Win11 Pro
March 10Mar 10 On 3/6/2026 at 10:57 AM, RobJC said: Flying from Denver to Vancouver yesterday (IRL), and I noticed the pilots did not fire up the left engine (737-800) until we were half way from the gate to the runway. Single engine taxiing is something i did not know. Learn something new literally every day. Fuel planning is something else i need to explore more. Nothing like flight simulation. At a huge airport like Denver, you can save probably a hundred pounds of gas on the taxi (or more). Times that by the whole fleet, every day... it's a lot of money. A guy I work with flew Dash-7s up north; when they switched from a 4-engine to 2-engine taxi, the company saved over a million bucks a year on fuel, and that's between 6-7 airplanes. Edited March 10Mar 10 by ATRguy
March 11Mar 11 Author 8 hours ago, ATRguy said: At a huge airport like Denver, you can save probably a hundred pounds of gas on the taxi (or more). Times that by the whole fleet, every day... it's a lot of money. A guy I work with flew Dash-7s up north; when they switched from a 4-engine to 2-engine taxi, the company saved over a million bucks a year on fuel, and that's between 6-7 airplanes. word not allowed. Makes sense! 7950X3D | RTX 4090 | 96GB DDR5 | 4K G-Sync | Win11 Pro
March 11Mar 11 On 3/6/2026 at 10:57 AM, RobJC said: Flying from Denver to Vancouver yesterday Do you live in Denver area Rob Noel System: 9900X3D Noctua NH-D15 G2, MSI Pro 650-P WiFi, G.SKILL 64GB (2 x 32GB) 288-Pin PC RAM DDR5 6000, WD NVMe 2Tb x 1, Sabrent NVMe 2Tb x 1, RTX 4090 FE, Corsair RM1000W PSU, Win11 Home, LG Ultra Curved Gsync Ultimate 3440x1440, Phanteks Enthoo Pro Case, TCA Boeing Edition Yoke & TQ, Cessna Trim Wheel, RTSS Framerate Limiter w/ Front Edge Sync. Aircraft used in MSFS 2024: Fenix A320, Aerosoft CRJ, FBW, WT 787X, I-Fly 737 MAX 8, Citation Longitude.
March 11Mar 11 Author 2 hours ago, Noel said: Do you live in Denver area Rob Yes, I live in Colorado south of Denver. 7950X3D | RTX 4090 | 96GB DDR5 | 4K G-Sync | Win11 Pro
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