Delta Virtual Airlines Water Cooler

Delta Virtual Airlines Water Cooler | Airline Operations | Fuel Stops En-Route

DVA9052
Captain, DC-6
OLP

Joined on September 14 2010
50 State Club
DVA Ten-Year Anniversary
Everett Century Club
Double Century Club
Online Double Century Club

"On Ne Passe Pas!"
Ypsilanti, MI

263 legs, 986.0 hours
247 legs, 950.1 hours online
257 legs, 960.8 hours ACARS
42 legs, 112.4 hours event

Posted onPost created on November 18 2014 08:14 ET by Kyle Bjorklund

This question popped into my head a few nights ago and didn't seem to be asked here before. It actually has two components to it but the main question is: are fuel stops allowed on flights? (for example, a long flight like KATL-FAOR).
-Would it be possible to have a fallback fuel stop if it turns out winds are lighter and/or the fuel burn is higher than planned (in the above example GOOY)?
-Would it be possible, then, to plan a flight outside an aircraft's range, but use intermediate fuel stop(s) to get to the intended destination (such as flying a 727 from North America to Europe)?

Just a thought that occurred and wondered if it had been brought up before and if it was permissible.

Kyle Bjorklund

Captain, DC-6

DVA11021
Captain, B757-200
OLP

Joined on September 13 2012
B757 100 Club
Everett 250 Club
Triple Century Club
Online Triple Century Club
DVA Five-Year Anniversary

Milford, NH

375 legs, 620.5 hours
365 legs, 604.5 hours online
374 legs, 618.9 hours ACARS
21 legs, 51.4 hours event

Posted onPost created on November 18 2014 09:08 ET by Sean Zarella

fuel stops are not in real life, They are part of the Flight Leg route or multi route that you yourself can create in the pilots center. Your aircraft can only fly a single leg its rated for. acars will detect landing and what airport its at. Its a good idea as a pilot to
calculate the winds and fuel usage before flight during dispatch, I use Simbrief which is very accurate and its free. Just IMO

Sean Zarella (DVA11021)

DVA11591
Senior Captain, B757-200
OLP

Joined on July 02 2013
50 State Club
Globetrotter
Everett Millennium Club
DVA Fleet Master
Online Twenty Century
US Coastal Club
Events Double Century Club
Five Million Mile Club
US Mountaineer Club
B757 100 Club
Tri-Millennium Club
Tin Dispatcher
DVA Ten-Year Anniversary

"Left foot dead foot, verified! Feather Left!"
Daytona Beach, FL

3,271 legs, 11,709.7 hours
2,885 legs, 10,250.1 hours online
3,142 legs, 11,149.0 hours ACARS
326 legs, 874.1 hours event
274 legs dispatched, 316.5 hours

Posted onPost created on November 19 2014 00:40 ET by Soonho Lee

Kyle Bjorklund wrote:

-Would it be possible to have a fallback fuel stop if it turns out winds are lighter and/or the fuel burn is higher than planned (in the above example GOOY)?

Yes, and those are called the alternates along the routes. Even though it is rare in the RW, since there are top notch dispatchers, and have exact data for each aircraft in each airline,there is still a slight chance that airplane diverting to alternate along the route to fuel up and continue with the flight. One example of this happening is on one of the Qantas flight from Dallas to Brisbane Airport flight, where 744 had to divert close to Brisbane due to unforeseen higher headwind, fuel up and depart for Brisbane again.

Now with our DVA rule, I'd like you bring up the NOTAM 33. You have to make into the field that is served by the DAL and/or its code shares, and have to be more than 1/2 the distance from your DEP and arr airport. Your flight will be held until you complete the flight.

Kyle Bjorklund wrote:

-Would it be possible, then, to plan a flight outside an aircraft's range, but use intermediate fuel stop(s) to get to the intended destination (such as flying a 727 from North America to Europe)?

I think it will be not be favorable in these days. In the early days of flying, due to lack of range and performance of the aircraft, to travel a long distance, they had to stop along a way to get the fuel and so on. But nowadays, we have planes that can fly in such a range in great performance, that it would not be economical to have plane do multiple leg to reach point A~B.

Now in the virtual airline.. You can't do that. Aircraft that you are flying must have sufficient range to do so, otherwise the flight will get rejected.

Soonho Lee (DVA11591)

DVA9263
Senior Captain, B737-800
OLP

Joined on December 11 2010
Two Million Mile Club
Everett 500 Club
Millennium Club
Online Millennium Club
DVA Ten-Year Anniversary

Scandinavia

1,204 legs, 5,875.8 hours
1,187 legs, 5,792.3 hours online
1,202 legs, 5,870.0 hours ACARS
19 legs, 77.1 hours event

Posted onPost created on November 19 2014 14:19 ET by Peter Lund

Sean Zarella wrote:

fuel stops are not in real life

That is not correct. Fuelstop are sometimes required in real life, but they are unscheduled (or planned prior to departure) and often required due to stronger headwinds than normal.

Peter Lund

Senior Captain, B737-800

DVA10902
Senior Captain, B767-300

Joined on July 12 2012
50 State Club
Everett 250 Club
DVA Five-Year Anniversary
Online Quadruple Century Club
Quincentenary Club

"Where am I? Who dressed me like this?"
Bloomingdale, IL

515 legs, 1,153.3 hours
473 legs, 1,063.5 hours online
514 legs, 1,150.2 hours ACARS
9 legs, 19.0 hours event

Posted onPost created on November 19 2014 17:07 ET by Tim Oleary

Peter is correct. Back in the day when on the 742 we'd get a release from dispatch that was a point 300 miles west of PANC. At that point we (Dispatch and crew) would review the current situations (winds, destination wx, alternates, crew duty time limits etc) then get re-release to destination or turn back to PANC for what was termed "A Tecnical Stop". Didn't happen a lot but we were ready for it.

ETOPS is now added into the mix for even more 'mind games'....then add in the economic factor of leaving payload behind in favor of fuel....

Tim Oleary (DVA10902)

Posted onPost created on November 19 2014 17:50 ET by Sean Zarella

well yes peter, i meant to say sometimes needed but not to be setup for fuel stops only step by step legs. Your aircract has a specific range and to plan accordingly not to purposefuly plan fuel stops.

Sean Zarella (DVA11021)

Posted onPost created on November 20 2014 08:06 ET by Kyle Bjorklund

All good points - thanks for the input, guys.

Kyle Bjorklund

Captain, DC-6

DVA2301
Captain, B777-200
COMM

Joined on April 25 2005
Everett Century Club
Double Century Club
DVA Ten-Year Anniversary

Baltimore, MD USA

264 legs, 820.6 hours
90 legs, 221.0 hours online
234 legs, 757.3 hours ACARS

Posted onPost created on November 20 2014 13:34 ET by Andrew Logan

Sean Zarella wrote:

well yes peter, i meant to say sometimes needed but not to be setup for fuel stops only step by step legs. Your aircract has a specific range and to plan accordingly not to purposefuly plan fuel stops.

Sean, this is entirely wrong. Even though your aircraft has that specific range doesn't mean it can make that distance all the time every time. Many variations come into play. Payload, winds, etc. Many airlines plan flights with tech stops like Tim said. Transcon flights run into this frequently in the winter. Especially on aircraft where the max envelopes are pushed. When I was under the Airways flag, CLT-HNL would very often stop in PHX to pick up extra gas. I'd say 8/10 times the flight stopped. I've heard of JetBlue transcons stopping doing JFK-LAX, LGB, etc. I'm sure every airline runs into this at some point.

If you really want to relate this back to specific range, you need to look at that range in TIME, not DISTANCE. Distance is under certain conditions. Time is time. When you are battling a 150kt headwind for 6 hours, your distance range is severely decreased. On the flip side when you have a 150kt tailwind, your distance range is greatly increased.

I'm not speaking towards DVA policy, because quite frankly I'm not sure what it is; however, fuel stops are out there, planned and unplanned.

Andrew Logan

Captain, B777-200

Posted onPost created on November 20 2014 14:14 ET by Sean Zarella

Ah, I see, Thanks for that information.

What i do, Is plan my route with winds in mind. whats aloft, the speed, most economical flight level, and plan fuel accordingly. we also plan our fuel loading for diversion hold points ect. that we all should practice. and know our diversion

I dont plan to stop for fuel or ever had to. I know some pilots dont plan and don't look at the wind forecast and run out of fuel early.

2 great sources of info i use is FLTplan.com and Simbrief.

Sean Zarella (DVA11021)

Posted onPost created on November 20 2014 15:30 ET by Andrew Logan

Sean,

Here is a good article talking about exactly this issue. Sometimes even the best flight planning won't get you there. It just is what it is. Mind you this is real world with everything as optimized as it can be. It doesn't have to do with not planning, sometimes the airplane is just pushed beyond it's max, and a stop is a must.

http://online.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052970203436904577152974098241982

Kyle, back to one of your original questions. This is still done today. For example: DTW-RJAA-RPLL. These flights are done with a planned stop due to distance and other variations. Usually these are considered direct flights vs nonstop. Domestically and in the shorter flight market, it is usually a flight to a hub then outstation. However, some airlines are using it for the longer distance flights. Example off the top of my head, British Airways running their business A318 BA001 JFK-SNN-LCY (this has to do with a customs clearance, but I'd imagine the plane would have to stop somewhere.) There are more out there. They aren't all that common, but aren't uncommon.

Andrew Logan

Captain, B777-200

Posted onPost created on November 20 2014 18:09 ET by Kyle Bjorklund

The reason I was thinking was a flight on the schedule SEA-VHHX on a DC-10-30. I know this can work real world - apparently UAL did a scheduled flight like this all the time. I can get it there, but it's very tight, so I was thinking of a stopgap just in case - this is how this came up. Would this be considered along the lines of our mechanical/weather diversion policy, then?

The multiple stop question was more a fantasy flight of trying to get a DC-3 across the pond with stops along the way.

Another thing that came to mind was British Airways used to have on their published schedule a EGLL-YSSY flight direct on a 747-400. The plane does not have range, so they would always stop along the way, but at different locations. For that particular virtual airline, the manager had us email him and ask where the stop was going to be on that day - I guess they would change it around for fuel/operational concerns.

Kyle Bjorklund

Captain, DC-6

DVA5643
Senior Captain, DC-6

Joined on February 08 2008
Piston Prop Professional
50 State Club
US Coastal Club
Globetrotter
US Mountaineer Club
Flying Colonel
DVA Fifteen-Year Anniversary
Long Beach 500 Club

"I'd rather be lucky than good"
Hampton, GA USA

1,914 legs, 2,888.2 hours
5 legs, 3.8 hours online
1,907 legs, 2,878.2 hours ACARS

Posted onPost created on November 22 2014 19:22 ET by Jim Daigneau

Tim's and Andrew's responses are what is referred to nowadays as a "redispatch" flight plan and is defined by OpSpec B044. As said, it is used most oten in the winter for Atlantic and Pacific westbound flights.
I think the ACARS protocol would be happy if the DVA flight made it at least half way to the destination. Is that correct?

Jim Daigneau (DVA5643)

DVA2887
Senior Captain, A320
OLP, 737-ATP, VFRADV
E-MAIL

Joined on January 30 2006
50 State Club
Globetrotter
Tri-Jet Triumph
US Coastal Club
Millennium Club
DVA Fifteen-Year Anniversary
US Mountaineer Club
Toulouse 250 Club
Online Eight Century

Charlotte, NC

1,286 legs, 1,796.2 hours
840 legs, 1,047.8 hours online
1,268 legs, 1,774.2 hours ACARS
31 legs, 49.6 hours event
3 legs dispatched, 2.5 hours

Posted onPost created on February 03 2015 21:18 ET by Andrew Vane

Yes. the flight has to be valid in the schedule or a charter with origin and destination. Stopping along the way will just throw up red flags, cause the flight to be held, and take more time and energy to decipher.

Technically, if a pilot did have to divert, the current NOTAM says they need to be 50% of the way there.

I may be adding some short hops across the Atlantic that were flown in the near future....

Andrew Vane (DVA2887)

DVA12104
Senior Captain, B727-200

Joined on January 24 2013
50 State Club
Globetrotter
Tri-Jet Triumph
US Coastal Club
US Mountaineer Club
Everett Bi-Millennium Club
Two Million Mile Club
Tri-Millennium Club
DVA Ten-Year Anniversary

""The white zone has always been for loading or unloading..""
Las Cruces, NM

3,338 legs, 6,583.0 hours
3,269 legs, 6,426.5 hours ACARS

Posted onPost created on February 04 2015 18:55 ET by Brian Donaldson

Glad the question was asked. I myself was wondering this also. Thank you Kyle. Good question.

Brian Donaldson

Senior Captain, B727-200

For flight simulation purposes only. Not a commercial website. In no way are we affiliated with Delta Air Lines, its affiliates, or any other airline. All logos, images, and trademarks remain the property of their respective owners. Delta Virtual Airlines is a non-profit entity engaged in providing an avenue for flight simulation enthusiasts.