Originally Posted by
sandlapper223
Hard to understand your views after reading the above. As I mentioned in my post above, alternate and reserve fuel is for preflight planning requirements. Once the flight has started, no requirement to obtain an alternate exists. Getting one is smart, and having the fuel to get there, is what I call "a plan".
The FAA legal team disagrees with you. They say it's a requirement in this legal interpretation.
http://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/...rpretation.pdf
Here is another good one kind of related to OP's question. Most people don't pay attention to the 121.647 requirements (after all, it says shall "consider") but in the following legal interpretation shall consider means you will have fuel on board for those circumstances. The one that surprised me...lets say you are dispatched with no alternate. You end up having to go around and get back in the sequence. You dip into your reserves due to the go around/missed and vector back around. FAA says you are in violation because you have to have fuel for a go around/missed at your destination, even if there is no alternate required, and that reserve fuel can't be used for that instance since the planned amount has to take that scenario into account.
http://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/...rpretation.pdf