Hi guys,

I've come across a question in a practice exam as follows.

An Echo has 300 litres of fuel on board at start up.

The flight fuel required is 120 litres.
The fixed reserve is 15 gallons.
The start up allowance is 3 gallons.
Fuel flow for holding is 17.2 gph.

The maximum time the aircraft could plan to hold at the destination aerodrome is.

The answer seems pretty straight forward and my understanding is that as it doesn't mention a variable reserve and there's no mention of a charter flight, a variable reserve is not required.
Unfortunately I was wrong. Can anybody tell me why I had to add a variable reserve?

Look forward to the reply.

I thought we had to assume charter conditions and a variable reserve?

I think your right. I'm under the impression that unless it stipulates that it's a private flight, we always use a variable reserve.

Hi Richard,

The fuel policy for the Echo explicitly include a variable reserve in accordance with the CAAP and since the Echo only appears in the CPL Performance exam, it is safe to assume the operation is a commercial op unless otherwise specified and the variable reserve is therefore included. The fuel policy in the CASA exam will make this clear as well to avoid ambiguity.

Cheers,

RIch

So,
300 ltrs = 79 USG
FF = 120/3.8 = 32 USG
Var = 5 USG
SUT = 3 USG
Fixed = 15 USG
24 USG remaining at 17.2 gph = 84 minutes holding fuel

is this right?