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Fuel Requirements within 50nm of your departure point
eagle
Topic Author
eagle created the topic: Fuel Requirements within 50nm of your departure point
Hi,
I am just getting myself a little confused with alternate requirements, and want to check my understanding of the following scenarios being correct.
1) You are departing an aerodrome and plan to conduct a 1 hour scenic flight (within 50nm of the aerodrome), returning to your departure aerodrome. Your arrival time falls within a TEMPO deterioration of weather below alternate minima. As this is still within the 50nm of the point of departure, no additional holding fuel or alternate is required correct? So the only fuel on board will be your fuel needed for the flight, fixed reserve and variable reserve.
2) The same situation as above but with thunderstorms, you are departing an aerodrome and plan to conduct a 1 hour scenic flight, returning to your departure aerodrome. Your arrival time falls within a TEMPO deterioration of weather with thunderstorms forecast, in this scenario you will need to carry 60mins extra fuel to hold for the TEMPO on top of the fuel for your flight, your fixed reserve, and variable reserve?
3) In the aip 11.7.2.2, refers to minima's for helicopter vfr operations. I again assume that alternate only needs to be planned if you are operating further than 50nm from your departure aerodrome, so for your 1 hour scenic (within 50nm miles) no alternate needs to be planned even if the weather is forecast to be below the minima?
baddles replied the topic: Fuel Requirements within 50nm of your departure point
I think your interpretations are correct but only in the sense of the "Operational Requirements" described in AIP GEN 1.1 paragraph 11.7. In your first example, there is no OPR because you're within 50 nm of departure aerodrome.
However there are other rules about fuel that apply to all flights.
CAR 234 says that the PIC must ensure there is enough fuel to complete the planned flight, taking into account the weather and the possibility of delay or forced diversion. The corresponding CAAP 234 expands on this. There are no hard-and-fast rules, just a requirement to "ensure you have enough fuel". If there was a TEMPO covering your ETA and you didn't add an hour's worth of extra fuel, this might be judged as a violation of CAR 234 if it went to court.
