can someone please explain to me how to calculate bingo fuel? thanks!

Bingo is a military term, and in no way means anything to ATC.

To answer your question, we use Bingo in the Navy to determine the point at which we need to divert or RTB. For instance, if we're operating on the ship, and the closest divert is 200 miles, flying an emergency fuel profile to cover that distance and land with X pounds of gas requires Y pounds of gas.

So we have a line in the sand, if you're not aboard, plugged into a tanker, etc by Y (or Bingo) you divert. Period. You put the divert on the nose, squawk 7700, and fly your max range profile.

On a day to day basis we use Bingo as our line in the sand to knock off whatever training we're doing and come RTB, to land with usually SOP minimum fuel on deck. So given the distance of whatever area we're working in, will determin our bingo fuel to RTB. That is also NOT an emergency profile, we plan that bingo at normal cruise, on a normal rtb route.

thanks for your response however not quite what I was looking for. let me try to explain, let's say we are flying from ord to lax, lax has bad weather and we have to hold for 1 hour burning 3000lbs an hour, min fuel is 2700lbs, we choose an alternate of San Diego. how would you calculate at what point you would leave the holding pattern? would it be your min fuel + how much it takes to fly from the holding fix to alt.

Required reserve+fuel to fly from holding to alternate+any anticipated delays+a little for mom and the kids and the family pooch.

What you are trying to avoid is a fuel emergency, the best way to do that is to somehow account for the unaccountable. The answer is not fixed, but varies continuously.

+1 with above. This should have been solved with preflight planning, and you shouldn't be picking your alternate when you need one. Min fuel on deck+required reserve+fuel required to get to your alternate and shoot an approach = bingo. Not to sound like a jerk but it's kind of common sense. You don't continue to hold and paint yourself into a corner. You should always know what your "out" is.

That is how I would calculate it, but if you are looking for a legal interpretation, I'm afraid it isn't that clear. I'm not aware of a regulation that states that you can't burn into your reserve fuel while holding. I wouldn't do it, but I've heard tales of those who have. The whole fuel to destination+fuel to alternate+reserve fuel is a preflight planning number. Having met that requirement, once you take off that regulation no longer applies.

unanticipated runway closures, cannot be predicted in preflight planning.

but to all thanks for the refresher!

How far out were you when the runway closed.

This happened to me once.
Coming back from a cross country with a little over SOP on deck required fuel. Came into the break, was at the 180 when the section go on the runway blew tires and closed the only available runway (other runway was closed for maintenance). One time around the pattern while talking about alternatives to landing there before hitting the NO KIDDING bingo for Savannah and took off. Landed with 100#s below emergency fuel. Had a brand new pilot on my wing too. WELCOME TO THE FLEET!

USMCFLYR

USMC.....

What was the original airport? CHS or NBC?

Your dispatch should have figured fuel from destination to alternate and that includes an approach at destination, fly to alternate and an approach.

But there are additional problems. If you are holding, others are probably holding also and if SAN is the nearest suitable, everyone else is going to be thinking SAN also. And SAN may then restrict arrivals.

A second point is IF you elect to divert, don't get suckered into deciding to return to destination when the field opens up which it seems to do invariably only minutes after you elect to divert. The problem here is that if destination goes back down or some other event occurs, you are now BELOW required fuel to alternate which is NOT good. And really, all this should be discussed and decided before you turn #1 or #2 in the chocks. Makes life a lot less stressful.