Delta Virtual Airlines Water Cooler

Delta Virtual Airlines Water Cooler | PC Support | Fuel loading help

DVA2570
Senior Captain, B727-200
COMM

Joined on September 10 2005
Online Double Century Club
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Mesa, AZ

1,242 legs, 3,308.9 hours
296 legs, 407.9 hours online
1,173 legs, 3,173.3 hours ACARS

Posted onPost created on January 20 2014 16:14 ET by Jim Pray

I have started using the PMDG 777 and 737 aircraft. Today I manually put in the fuel, which be the way when I landed I came in on fumes! My PIREP still gave me an overweight by some 97,000 lbs. How is that possible and/or what am I doing wrong?

Jim Pray (DVA2570)

DVA043
Senior Captain, MD-11
OLP

Joined on June 10 2001
Event Half Century Club
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"Col. Panic"
Marietta, GA

2,307 legs, 9,292.6 hours
240 legs, 553.9 hours online
1,965 legs, 8,085.7 hours ACARS
75 legs, 196.3 hours event
2,343 legs, 9,427.5 hours total
91 legs dispatched, 66.4 hours

Posted onPost created on January 20 2014 18:05 ET by Luke Kolin

Jim Pray wrote:

Today I manually put in the fuel, which be the way when I landed I came in on fumes! My PIREP still gave me an overweight by some 97,000 lbs. How is that possible and/or what am I doing wrong?

ACARS reports you had 240,000 lbs on landing. How much fuel was your panel indicating?

Cheers!

Luke Kolin

Senior Captain, MD-11

DVA10641
Assistant Chief Pilot, B757-200
OLP

Joined on March 29 2012
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Rosemount, MN USA

1,987 legs, 4,456.2 hours
1,865 legs, 3,929.2 hours online
1,967 legs, 4,422.4 hours ACARS
638 legs, 1,290.5 hours event
18 legs dispatched, 157.2 hours

Posted onPost created on January 20 2014 20:35 ET by Jason Boche

As Luke mentioned, your pirep reflects departing with 319,649 lbs fuel which is too much for a 1,700mi. flight.

One thing you may or may not be aware of is that international birds such as Air France or KLM use kg for their weight system in the FMC. If it was your intent to load 144,990 lbs fuel but you loaded 144,990 kg, then you end up with 319,649 lbs fuel loaded.

Where did you determine actual fuel on board when you landed? PROGgress from the FMC or your T7 glass display fuel panel? I'm going to go out on a limb and guess you saw a FUEL DISAGREE message in your FMC. I've been through this a few times while airborne. For whatever reason the FMC thinks there is a lot less fuel on board than actual which means there could be a fuel leak. In this case you need to follow the checklist to reconcile the fuel status.

Lastly the pirep reflects the equipment type of 777-300 which PMDG does not have (yet) plus 93% load with 371 pax which exceeds the 777-200 capacity. This may have skewed your fuel loading numbers.

Jason Boche

Assistant Chief Pilot, B757-200

Posted onPost created on January 22 2014 15:07 ET by Jim Pray

On this latest flight I landed with an "insufficient fuel" on my FMC. I think the FMC fuel read about 10.0 on landing. I loaded fuel by PROG on my FMC and then manually loaded the fuel. It indicated fuel on destination would be 26.6 or in that area. I did not see a "Fuel Disagree" message. Any ideas? The flight was from KMSP to MRLB

Jim Pray (DVA2570)

Posted onPost created on January 22 2014 23:14 ET by Jason Boche

The FMC will continuously nag you with "INSUFFICIENT FUEL" in the scratch pad in a fuel disagree condition because, well, the FMC thinks you'll run out of fuel before you reach your final destination without deviating. And this is bad. All I can tell you is that in the PMDG T7, you need to run through the fuel leak/fuel disagree checklist which 99% of the time has you reconcile the FMC fuel estimates to the actual fuel on board according to your tank readings. This is done on the PROG page 2 sheet of the FMC if I remember right. Essentially all it does is updates the FMC with the amount of fuel remaining in the tanks so that the FMC no longer thinks you're short on fuel.

Jason Boche

Assistant Chief Pilot, B757-200

Posted onPost created on January 23 2014 08:35 ET by Jim Pray

What about the "overweight" I am getting on my PIREPS? According to the FMC I came in on fumes and the PIREP said I was overweight. I am doing a long flight today so I will check this again.

Jim Pray (DVA2570)

Posted onPost created on January 23 2014 12:47 ET by Jason Boche

Max Landing Weight of the 777-300ER is 554,000 lbs.

Your landing weight according to ACARS was 649,946 lb total with 241,901 lb fuel which means your aircraft was approximately 97,108 lb overweight at landing.

You say you came in on fumes but we're back to the discrepancy between what your FMC thinks compared to what ACARS thinks was actually in the fuel tanks.

Jason Boche

Assistant Chief Pilot, B757-200

Posted onPost created on January 23 2014 13:14 ET by Jim Pray

I'll try using the ACARS fuel calculation and then enter in manually in my FMC and see it that changes anything.

Jim Pray (DVA2570)

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