Etops fuel / etp add

[dkdrums012]

Hello,

IRL dispatcher here. ETOPS add fuel for B343 is not a thing in the real world considering the fuel is already carried as part of the trip fuel.

Will simbrief kindly eliminate this from the fuel ladder ?

For example: a flight from SFO - MNL should not have 2hr50mins of additional fuel in the fuel ladder for ETOPS. The trip fuel already accounts for any diversion fuel since the intended destination cant be achieved.

This extra ETOPS fuel creates an overfueling scenario because it is included in the Gate release fuel, making the release fuel unreasonably higher than it should be.

Thanks for looking into this. If you have questions let me know

[SimBrief]

Hi, I’m not quite sure I understand. I was not aware that B343 removed the requirement for ETOPS add fuel?

Just for clarity on how SimBrief currently handles ETOPS fuel:

ETOPS fuel ensures that you have enough fuel to proceed from the critical point to the associated ETOPS suitable airport. Depending on where the critical point is and how far away your diversion airport is, the required diversion fuel might be higher than what is required to continue to destination (especially for depressurization scenarios where you might be cruising at 10,000 ft for many hours).

Sometimes ETOPS fuel can be eliminated by adding a diversion airport that is as close as possible to the ETOPS exit point, which is something that SimBrief’s auto-calculation doesn’t always do for you. This can all be customized in the ETOPS Scenario section of the Flight Options page.

On your last flight, your last ETOPS suitable airport was RJTT, which is much farther away than your destination if a failure happens just prior to the exit:

Adding RPLL as an additional ETOPS suitable airport probably would have eliminated most of your ETOPS add fuel. Also note that the WXX fuel you added is not considered to be on board when calculating if enough fuel remains for diversion at the critical point.

Is any of that logic incorrect for B343, if so which parts? Or is it just a difference in how the fuel ladder gets depicted perhaps?

@dougsnow @cactusdx , feel free to chime in as well.

Thanks,

[dougsnow]

“B343” fuel is fuel on board and thus is considered available for ETOPS as long as it was required fuel at brake release.

I’m sorry to keep this short, but I’m in France on VAC. Planning on getting back to the real world on the 11th.

Here is the FAA order announcing B343. If your ETOPS solution is far, you carry gas, and yes B343 fuel can be used. I’d have to see the fuel ladder in question, it’s no different than the 10% straight flag enroute reserve (hopefully less than it), or the class ii component of B043, it’s all required Fob when you pop the motor.

Yes, it is required in both time and fuel be specifically defined in the fuel ladder. All the current B343 operators do.

N_8900.383.pdf

[dkdrums012]

hello everyone
Thanks for looking into this. My apologies, I reran an almost exact calculation with the real world flight plan and noticed, the real world flight software considered the destination as an Intermediate airport (which technically is closest to the ETOPs exit point) . And in some cases, depending on the trip, it eliminates the ETOPS fuel. That’s why the fuel for ETOPS was almost non-existent in the fuel ladder compared to my simbrief flight plan .

Thank you for pointing out the manual adjustment to calculate and reduce the ETOPS fuel on simbrief.

The real world flight plan automatically compensates for this calculations and I thought simbrief will do the same.

[cactusdx]

@dkdrums012, @SimBrief

Howdy!

B343 does not remove any requirements for ETOPS ADD fuel and can certainly be a thing if it’s deemed necessary by the critical fuel scenario.

Here’s a quick sample of a 180-minute operation from HNL-LAX using B343 fuel reserves where the min takeoff fuel is driven by the requirements of the critical fuel scenario.

Our format includes a (CFS) note to advise the crew if the min takeoff fuel is predicated on the requirements of the ETOPS critical fuel scenario.

We can see here that the most critical burn from ETP to SFO is 19,963 lbs. In order to get to 20,000 lbs. of fuel on board at ETP the flight planning system had to add 2,669 lbs. of ETOPS ADD to get the CFS to work.

Since we’re less than 6 hours, weather permitting, we could potentially go without a destination alternate, which would then drive the ETOPS ADD requirement even higher, since we still have to meet the requirement of the CFS.

Here’s another example of our SYD-LAX (B343) where no ETOPS ADD is required. The most critical ETP is the last one between ITO-LAX. As you can see, we’re projected to have 62,737 lbs. of fuel at the last ETP with a minimum required of 60,047 so we’re about 2,600 lbs. to the good, no ETOPS ADD required to make the CFS work.

The requirement for ETOPS ADD will be predicated on how much fuel is available when calculated at each ETP. If the Dispatcher has planned additional fuel (highly likely), or the Captain has requested additional fuel, then the system has more to work with, minimizing the likelihood of seeing ETOPS ADD.

Different fuel reserve methods can reduce total fuel on board, which can indirectly drive the need for ETOPS ADD fuel, but the reserve methods themselves don’t specifically dictate ETOPS ADD requirements.

As @dougsnow mentioned, it all depends on your ETOPS solution.

Mike Collier

[SimBrief]

Thanks @cactusdx, @dougsnow and @dkdrums012 for the insights!

Cheers,