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I've been flying with other Captains as part of a 3 man crew for the last 6 months and it has been very interesting to see how other Captains operate.
One of us is designated as Commander on the outbound flight with the other Captain being the relief Pilot. We switch roles on the return flight. From time to time we operate with 1 Captain and 2 F/O
One thing I have noticed is an extreme reluctance to deviate from the Flightplan - it is looked upon as some sort of religious text.
I look at the Flightplan as a starting point - I'm quite happy to deviate from it.
I will provide some examples later in the post but firstly a quick overview of our long haul operation.
Almost all our European flights are flown using a re-dispatch procedure. There are two flightplans. The first one will be Colombo-Frankfurt and the second one is from waypoint SUBES to London Heathrow. The flight is filed Colombo-London Heathrow and the Flightplan is loaded as filed in the FMC.
Re-dispatch allows less contingency fuel to be taken. Difference is about 1300kg which allows more cargo/pax to be taken. The flight is planned with a higher cost index than normal.
Most of these flights are departing at MTOW so it is not possible to take extra fuel.
It is possible to enter winds at multiple altitudes for each waypoint and the PF spends the first 30-40 minutes of cruise entering this profile. These flights will have an altitude profile of 280/320/340/350/360/380.
What I do - Long Haul
After the wind profile has been entered I will allow the FMC to re-compute the step point for the next cruise level. We can either specify a point at which to climb or let the system compute the optimum point. Normally we get an optimum step point that calls for an earlier climb and gives us a fuel saving. After climbing I'll do the same thing for the next altitude. I've seen savings of up to 200kg/hr doing this. The only drawback to this procedure is that we will always be flying very close to the maximum altitude. Normally the step point calculated by the FMC is exactly the same as the point where that altitude is the maximum the aircraft can climb to.
Because we are flying on a re-dispatch it's all about fuel - I'm not interested in the time. We have to have xxxxxkg at SUBES.
I will always try to have the aircraft as close as possible to the optimum level.
I don't descend once I reach a higher cruise level - costs a lot of fuel to climb back up. On one flight over Iran we were supposed to descend to FL300. I stayed at FL340 and later even climbed to FL360. It cost us 70knots groundspeed and about 10 minutes extra flight time but we saved about 400kg.
I will also put in a wind profile for FL400 during the last part of the flight. If we departed at less than MTOW we will sometimes get a step with a fuel saving even though it is not on the Flightplan.
Short Haul
I'll normally climb up as high as operationally feasable. I've been able to consistantly save 400-500kg on a 2 X 1 hour flight by operating at FL340/350 vs a planned FL280/FL290. I used to hear almost everyone else operating this particular flight at the planned levels. This was on the A320.
Recently I flew Rome - Paris - Rome. 2 X 1+40. Flightplan was FL300/FL310 probably for flow restrictions. After take-off requested and received FL380/FL390. Southbound they gave us a small re-routing but we saved a total of 1300kg. Cruise time was just over 30 minutes.
Recently I was positioning Paris - Rome. I had a look on the Flight Tracking system - FL310. That's where all the weather and turbulence is - especially crossing the Alps. I wouldn't even consider operating at that level.
Re Route
Last year I encountered a problem flying Eastbound out of Riyadh. Planned level was FL370 but during climb we were told FL270 would be final with no indication of how long we would be at this level. They offered us FL370 with a different exit point from their FIR which I immediately accepted.
They pay me to make decisions - so I made one. I can understand not everyone would do this or be comfortable doing this.
We checked the charts but there was no real way to get back on our original routing so we came up with an alternative routing we were both happy with. Plan "B" would have been to turn North to Muscat for fuel in case we encountered problems getting the route. On initial contact with Muscat ATC they wanted to know which route we were requesting so we requested what we had agreed to earlier and they were happy to clear us on this route.
In total we flew about 20 minutes of a 5+30 flight on the flightplanned route. We burned 200kg extra vs the flightplan. It all worked out very nicely.
What others do
Normally they follow the Flightplan and climb where it tells them to climb. They do this even if the optimum altitude shows a higher level is better. I had a discussion about this with a senior Captain recently. He was making a copy of the flightplan in the FMC and then entering the higher cruise level. The secondary flightplan showed no savings. I showed him that there was an optimum step point calculated by the FMC. We climbed up and he could see the fuel savings for himself as we crossed each waypoint.
I'm curious to hear what other people do.
One of us is designated as Commander on the outbound flight with the other Captain being the relief Pilot. We switch roles on the return flight. From time to time we operate with 1 Captain and 2 F/O
One thing I have noticed is an extreme reluctance to deviate from the Flightplan - it is looked upon as some sort of religious text.
I look at the Flightplan as a starting point - I'm quite happy to deviate from it.
I will provide some examples later in the post but firstly a quick overview of our long haul operation.
Almost all our European flights are flown using a re-dispatch procedure. There are two flightplans. The first one will be Colombo-Frankfurt and the second one is from waypoint SUBES to London Heathrow. The flight is filed Colombo-London Heathrow and the Flightplan is loaded as filed in the FMC.
Re-dispatch allows less contingency fuel to be taken. Difference is about 1300kg which allows more cargo/pax to be taken. The flight is planned with a higher cost index than normal.
Most of these flights are departing at MTOW so it is not possible to take extra fuel.
It is possible to enter winds at multiple altitudes for each waypoint and the PF spends the first 30-40 minutes of cruise entering this profile. These flights will have an altitude profile of 280/320/340/350/360/380.
What I do - Long Haul
After the wind profile has been entered I will allow the FMC to re-compute the step point for the next cruise level. We can either specify a point at which to climb or let the system compute the optimum point. Normally we get an optimum step point that calls for an earlier climb and gives us a fuel saving. After climbing I'll do the same thing for the next altitude. I've seen savings of up to 200kg/hr doing this. The only drawback to this procedure is that we will always be flying very close to the maximum altitude. Normally the step point calculated by the FMC is exactly the same as the point where that altitude is the maximum the aircraft can climb to.
Because we are flying on a re-dispatch it's all about fuel - I'm not interested in the time. We have to have xxxxxkg at SUBES.
I will always try to have the aircraft as close as possible to the optimum level.
I don't descend once I reach a higher cruise level - costs a lot of fuel to climb back up. On one flight over Iran we were supposed to descend to FL300. I stayed at FL340 and later even climbed to FL360. It cost us 70knots groundspeed and about 10 minutes extra flight time but we saved about 400kg.
I will also put in a wind profile for FL400 during the last part of the flight. If we departed at less than MTOW we will sometimes get a step with a fuel saving even though it is not on the Flightplan.
Short Haul
I'll normally climb up as high as operationally feasable. I've been able to consistantly save 400-500kg on a 2 X 1 hour flight by operating at FL340/350 vs a planned FL280/FL290. I used to hear almost everyone else operating this particular flight at the planned levels. This was on the A320.
Recently I flew Rome - Paris - Rome. 2 X 1+40. Flightplan was FL300/FL310 probably for flow restrictions. After take-off requested and received FL380/FL390. Southbound they gave us a small re-routing but we saved a total of 1300kg. Cruise time was just over 30 minutes.
Recently I was positioning Paris - Rome. I had a look on the Flight Tracking system - FL310. That's where all the weather and turbulence is - especially crossing the Alps. I wouldn't even consider operating at that level.
Re Route
Last year I encountered a problem flying Eastbound out of Riyadh. Planned level was FL370 but during climb we were told FL270 would be final with no indication of how long we would be at this level. They offered us FL370 with a different exit point from their FIR which I immediately accepted.
They pay me to make decisions - so I made one. I can understand not everyone would do this or be comfortable doing this.
We checked the charts but there was no real way to get back on our original routing so we came up with an alternative routing we were both happy with. Plan "B" would have been to turn North to Muscat for fuel in case we encountered problems getting the route. On initial contact with Muscat ATC they wanted to know which route we were requesting so we requested what we had agreed to earlier and they were happy to clear us on this route.
In total we flew about 20 minutes of a 5+30 flight on the flightplanned route. We burned 200kg extra vs the flightplan. It all worked out very nicely.
What others do
Normally they follow the Flightplan and climb where it tells them to climb. They do this even if the optimum altitude shows a higher level is better. I had a discussion about this with a senior Captain recently. He was making a copy of the flightplan in the FMC and then entering the higher cruise level. The secondary flightplan showed no savings. I showed him that there was an optimum step point calculated by the FMC. We climbed up and he could see the fuel savings for himself as we crossed each waypoint.
I'm curious to hear what other people do.
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