Originally Posted by
jmcmanna
Every once in a while we get an airplane that states they are too heavy to land and needs to burn off some gas. Working at ORD approach, I can understand adding extra fuel, particularly on days like today where the weather was pretty crappy all morning.
My question is, when it becomes apparent that you are going to need to burn extra fuel to land, what action do you take to do this? To the uneducated, it seems like you can just throw out the spoilers or flaps so you need a higher power setting to burn fuel more quickly -- is that it? Is there anything that I, as a controller, can do to help you burn more gas? I know being lower helps, but is there a speed I should assign?
I'm trying to avoid extra work for myself and a more complicated procedure by taking an aircraft out of the arrival stream and then trying to blend it back in later if there's something I can do to just keep it in line.
As others have stated, often times it can be mitigated by the crew during the enroute portion. However, it's not always that easy nor cut and dried. Often times our max allowable take off weight is due to landing structural weight. The routes we area cleared via include the FULL STAR. And often times, it's not uncommon in ORD to fly the ENTIRE approach from the outermost fix. Based on that, it may seem that when we take off and we'll be below landing structural weight. And after all, what happens if we lose comm? We're expected to fly the filed/cleared/last assigned, as well as initiate the approach at a prescribed time per FARs. Not a likely scenario, but it's STILL a point to consider.
One thing that can throw a wrench in the system is if the weather is down and there's gas on board for an alternate as well as contingency and extra, and the wx is holding steady or on the decline. Would it be a good idea to fly lower and burn more gas during the enroute portion when we'd really like to have the alt gas as well as contingency/extra on board just in case things don't go according to plan when we get there? There have been times where the alternate is the one EVERYBODY else is using, and asking to go there just puts in the a long line behind the other guys going there. Again, not that common, but it does have to be factored into our decision process.
Another thing as far as ORD is concerned is related to the above as far as the cleared route goes. About 2/3 through the flight we get the "cleared direct HALIE/ESSPO direct O'hare" that takes us off the original long STAR track that includes the lengthy downwind and going all the way out for the approach. All of the sudden, we can now be faced with landing a few hundred pounds under to landing a few hundred pounds over very quickly. Being assigned 300/310, whatever all the way to the last fix before being handed off to approach doesn't really help as those speed are above gear and flap limits. If we are allowed to slow, we're usually descending so there's an issue of burn rate. At this point, coming down early and putting out gear and flap will usually do the trick if we can slow early enough. But it can loop back around what's going on with ORD and do we want/need the gas for later, etc.
As far as spoilers go, the plane I'm on doesn't allow for them to be out when the TL's are above a certain angle thats barely above flight idle. In other words, they're not one of the things that can be put out to burn more gas. What can work the best is being allowed to do 250 below 10K with our gear and first flap setting out. But this doesn't always work in the terminal area as we're often slowed to 180, etc. If we do need to burn the gas, being cleared back to max allowable below 10k can do it fast.
I've only had it happen a few times where it wasn't till late in the flight that we were going to be heavy, and each time the ORD TRACON guy handled it like a champ. Didn't flinch, didn't waiver, simply spun us or gave us enough vectors to take care of the problem. But them again, ORD has arguably some of the best controllers ANYWHERE.
IAH TRACON? Well, those guys can be a different story.