Old 10-17-2019, 11:14 PM
  #7  
Blackhawk
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Joined APC: Mar 2005
Posts: 1,888
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Originally Posted by vessbot View Post
Pen and calculator answer: this.

FMS answer, without knowing your particular one and its special tricks: keep putting in fake EFC's until your arrival fuel at the alternate is what you want.

Other thoughs: yeah the 45 minutes is not required once you've launched, but it's a good starting point and personally I wouldn't go below it without a seriously good set of circumstances lining up, like a few good alternates in the same direction, etc. Conversely you may decide to bump it up if there's only 1 alternate, its weather is getting worse, other diversions are already saturating its arrival rate, etc. Our you wanna give yourself fuel for a missed and second attempt at landing at the destination.
Yeah, whenever I was holding I figured the 45 min reserve plus 10% in case I messed something up. Then had the FO back me up.
I once was holding for DTW during a snow storm, DTW closed down CLE my alt. Looked around, FNT was closer so I changed the alt to FNT. Sweet. Now I had tons of time. ATC comes over and announces FNT closed. Crap. Back to CLE. As soon as I tell my dispatcher CLE closes down. Crap. Now what? I talk to dispatcher- PIT. Son. Of. A. Biscuit. I have to go now. Just after I tel ATC I have to bug out he says DTW is open and I’m number 1. Got cleared direct to the final course and made it in. Took over 9000’ to get the airplane stopped. Aircraft after me landed and also called braking poor-nil so they closed it again.
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