Saving Fuel
 

Hey guys, with the price of fuel these days, saving fuel is matter of job security. I know many companies have instituted numerous fuel saving measures. Additionally, some people have their individual techniques for additional fuel savings. I'm curious what measures each of your companies are mandating and what you guys are actually practicing.

Keep it clean on a visual...plan the descent to bring 'em up from idle at 500 feet on speed. So many guys go and configure flaps 45 and gear down at over 5 miles. What an incredible waste of fuel...

My personal technique, much to the company's shagrin, is to pull the power levers to shut-off on final and glide it in. Then have one of the tugs meet us to pull us in to the gate. NIMBY whinos seem to be happy with it also.

Sorry, getting tired and in a wise-ass kinda mood. We have the top secret PPAS at my company which they seem to like us to use. If we're running late with connecting passengers though, for example, the guys I've flown with so far are more than willing to keep the speed up and make up time rather than slow it up to save fuel. Single engine taxi is a popular one across the board, and at wonderful JFK during the push we'll shut them both down and run the APU if we're gonna be sitting a while, which isn't all that uncommon as far as I know.

single engine taxi and use the apu as little as possible..........a lot of cross bleed starts. also theyve been on us about 4 degree slopes vs 3 degree. jury is still out on that one. 4 degree leaves little room if atc decides to slap you with crossing restriction.

Just syphon gas from your competitors aircraft.

4 Degree glideslope is absolutely do-able...we use 3.8 all the time (at about 3K fpm) and never hit over 320 KIAS...you can do well over that in the CRJ-200 (almost 4K), without the boards even.

get a vector!

I love how we at Republic go out of our way to save gas for US Air since they pay the bill. SE taxi, Cross Bleed starts, GPU ASAP. Yet I have yet to see a Mainline US Airways aircraft not sitting in line with us in Philly for 45 minutes without at least 2 engines some times 3(apu) burning.

The other great part is sitting in the alley for 15 minutes while the ramp crew finishes the last few minutes of Montel or Springer before they bother to come out and park you. I like having to beg for the ground power too. Its almost as though no one has told the people at Airways that they are loosing money because fuel costs so much, but I bet they have.

Welcome to the life of a Contractor...

On another note, I am completely boggled by how, all of a sudden (after one heavy company-wide email), there is ground power for us everywhere. I haven't had to spin the APU after landing in nearly two weeks. Very impressive.

But then you have guys that just didn't "get the memo." Flew with one awhile back that refused to let me shut the number 1 down on taxi-in because he didn't want to run on a single Gen...?? :confused:

I know a guy who had an APU failure while sitting out there on a taxiway I believe in Memphis waiting for #'s and have to get towed back to the gate to do a huffer start. Also talked to a guy who said the power did not transfer to the apu fast enough and lost all brakes and steering until it switched back over, while he went rolling down a sloping taxiway (intending to just hold the brakes). Just food for thought. I won't be shutting both down as long as the captain is alright with it.

Single engine taxi is common practice. I personally use a 3.5 degree GS on my vertical planning which seems to help by being able to bring the thrust levers almost all the way back, yet still provide BA for pressurization. I also make a slightly steeper climb which seems to greatly help since you can pull the power back sooner with essentially the same distance traveled, maybe a 275/.70 climb instead of 290/.78 makes an immense difference. If you have a tailwind, why not do that?? Also if you have a tailwind, why not slow it down to your original estimated arrival time? Slow it up to LRC if that's what it takes to bring your arrival time to estimated, but save fuel if you can!!

I would like to point out that I am not trying to help the company, which is apparently evil, but rather trying to save some fuel for my greedy SELF so by the time I turn 45 we won't be driving electro-hybrid cars. LoL

Oh and I never got a message in my V file or anything of the like informing me to slow it down, release still shows ~.74 for cruise... not sure what the media was talking about because I haven't heard anything on my side about it...

Have you folks been given any "official" changes to speed profiles to save fuel??

Oh and I like your avatar... ;)