Call for Release

[glasspilot]

How can you be between max landing and min fuel? Is your alternate so far way it cone close to max range of the plane? (max range minus the differance of MGLW and MZFW)

What type aircraft and please give city pairs and the alternate where this is a problem. I'm curious now how that could happen with enough regularity to warrant a "rant".

 

[amcflyboy]

Welcome to OAJ and the wrath of ILM app.

OAJ, as in Jacksonville, NC??

 

[Lrjtcaptain]

I get further away equals more flexibility. But "the closer you are the more planes there are to factor in" I must disagree with. If you draw a smaller circle between departure and destination then there are obviously fewer planes in that smaller circle...not more.

The only issue I could see would be that of time and finding a gap. TEC should help on the shortest of the short city pairs to help find that gap.

To the OP: did you put "request TEC" in the remarks?

Yes, but take this into account. Go on flightaware sometime and look at all the arrivals into a major hub like ATL. Factoring in only 1 airport lets say ATL in this case where the en route aircraft compress in at the arrival corridors on a given STAR you will see the congestion begin to arise. Take an airport like Mobile that in theory could get direct to some point on the STAR immediately after departure and that is where you need to look at what is in the overhead stream. Now go further out, lets say KCLE. The controllers have more wiggle room to get you in the overhead stream due to speed restrictions, different transitions etc...

 

[sinkrate]

How can you be between max landing and min fuel? Is your alternate so far way it cone close to max range of the plane? (max range minus the differance of MGLW and MZFW)

What type aircraft and please give city pairs and the alternate where this is a problem. I'm curious now how that could happen with enough regularity to warrant a "rant".

For a CRJ the max ZFW is 44K and the max landing weight is 47K. That gives us 3K pounds of fuel to land with without bumping payload. That works fine if the destination is VFR. If you add an alternate you will have a reduced max payload because you will be landing with more than 3K of fuel. Now, if I have a two hour leg in front of me I can change altitudes and cruise speeds to deal with whatever fuel I have on board at gear up. If we had a long ground hold I can fly slower and climb higher than planned. If we see we are going to land overweight we descend and pick the speed up. We work the problem before we join the arrival.

If it is a 45 minute leg into a busy hub you don't have these options. You are going to get the arrival, speed (slow) and altitude (low) center needs you on in saturated airspace. Since it is a short flight you are filed low to start with. If I take off heavy there is very little way to get rid of the fuel without a major fight with some ATC facility.

This problem isn't unique to a CRJ. I've been booted off the jumpseat of 72's for it and I know a Purple CA that was booted of the JS of a purple MD for it.

I hate leaving jumpseaters behind because ATC has their heads in a dark place. Like I said in my first post. The problem ain't new, we negotiated with TMU for a long time with no problem. What is new is TMU's refusal to work with you.

Try this one. TMU insists that to go from Omaha to MEM we must go via Garden City Kansas and Dallas. Spent thirty minutes trying to get it changed. They gave me the choice of accepting it or cancelling, no other options. As soon as we were airborne ATC commented 'I don't know where this route came from, you are cleared direct'. We had to decline it for fuel weight.

 

[DLconnection]

Being that I have seen this situation from both sides of the mic, I can confidently say that i am not in the dark on this one. (and yes, ive flown the CRJ too)

What are we talking about here? We are talking about information being passed along EFFICIENTLY to allow both sides to be informed, to help operators plan (fuel,pax,etc) and for flights to operate on time with minimal delays.

Referring to your previous statement about leaving jumpseaters, non revs or other paying customers for that matter. The airlines are guilty of this too. How many times has your dispatchers given u an outbound load restriction on the number of pax/cargo because u have had to carry too much gas, then only to find out that the wx has cleared up and now u dont need to be rerouted or dont need that 1st/2nd alternate and could have taken more passengers.

On the ATC end. there are several layers to the cake. your terminal facilities will work with you and pass along information as its received. remember that the centers are constantly giving the terminal facilities new routings based on the traffic flows in and out of their airspace. guess what... those centers are also given restrictions and routings to their adjacent centers because of things that impact their airspace. ie... ZID is affected from traffic saturation or thunderstorms at DFW which intern causes ZDW to react which then leads to ZID changing the routing to their flow into the area which causes a possible swap route into the DFW area. Oh wait... The command center now seeing this calls for a ground delay program going into DFW. you get the point. This structure is dynamic and is affected by a number of things. so before you continue to rant on about how ATC is in the dark, id argue that its the other way around.

 

[FO4life]

First time this happened to me in all the years I've been flying. two weeks ago had a flight from HDN - RDG. Two small airports both were clear blue and a million. got an hour and a half delay from denver and he "couldn't " give me a reason just that Traffic management said no.

 

[glasspilot]

For a CRJ the max ZFW is 44K and the max landing weight is 47K. That gives us 3K pounds of fuel to land with without bumping payload.

What? What does the difference between MLW and MZFW have to do with it? You can land below you MZFW. You can land above MZFW too. Also, you can takeoff above your MLW. I really don't see your point here.

That works fine if the destination is VFR. If you add an alternate you will have a reduced max payload because you will be landing with more than 3K of fuel. Now, if I have a two hour leg in front of me I can change altitudes and cruise speeds to deal with whatever fuel I have on board at gear up. If we had a long ground hold I can fly slower and climb higher than planned. If we see we are going to land overweight we descend and pick the speed up. We work the problem before we join the arrival.

If it is a 45 minute leg into a busy hub you don't have these options. You are going to get the arrival, speed (slow) and altitude (low) center needs you on in saturated airspace. Since it is a short flight you are filed low to start with. If I take off heavy there is very little way to get rid of the fuel without a major fight with some ATC facility.

If its a 45 minute flight why is taking off heavy a problem? Just take less gas. You don't need it as it's a 45 minute flight. Like I said in my previous post, how could this be a problem unless your alternate is VERY far away.

This problem isn't unique to a CRJ. I've been booted off the jumpseat of 72's for it and I know a Purple CA that was booted of the JS of a purple MD for it.

I hate leaving jumpseaters behind because ATC has their heads in a dark place. Like I said in my first post. The problem ain't new, we negotiated with TMU for a long time with no problem. What is new is TMU's refusal to work with you.

Try this one. TMU insists that to go from Omaha to MEM we must go via Garden City Kansas and Dallas. Spent thirty minutes trying to get it changed. They gave me the choice of accepting it or cancelling, no other options. As soon as we were airborne ATC commented 'I don't know where this route came from, you are cleared direct'. We had to decline it for fuel weight.

Also, there is never (almost) a reason to bump a jumpseater. They only weigh 180 lbs and I can find that in rounding errors. Seriously, a carry on is 10 lbs. Just move 18 of 'em into the cabin and the JS goes. Easy.

 

[Clutch]

Also, there is never (almost) a reason to bump a jumpseater. They only weigh 180 lbs and I can find that in rounding errors. Seriously, a carry on is 10 lbs. Just move 18 of 'em into the cabin and the JS goes. Easy.

The problem usually is that the fueler has already fueled the RJ before someone has a chance to give the guy a lower fuel load. That and ACARS leaves you very little room to work with. Sometimes you can enter the weights all sorts of ways and there just isn't a solution. If you use a "whiz-wheel" no problem, but ACARS, not so much.

Some airlines prohibit carry-ons in the cabin. Only "personal items".... I don't give a rat's hymen what they take on, I'm just saying that some do.

Also, which airlines list carry-ons as 10 lbs?

 

[glasspilot]

Also, which airlines list carry-ons as 10 lbs?

ACA did, however that was 6 years ago and they're defunct now. At the time a carry on weighed 10 lbs if it was checked in the cargo and zero if it was in the cabin (actually it was simply included in the pax average weight, but that's the same thing as zero really).

So you just move 18 of them into the cabin and you magically have the weight for the JS. Weather you actually move them or not is up to you. Point is there's never (almost) a valid reason to leave a JS behind.

 

[Clutch]

So you just move 18 of them into the cabin and you magically have the weight for the JS. Weather you actually move them or not is up to you. Point is there's never (almost) a valid reason to leave a JS behind.

Technically, that's prohibited. Any other solutions?

 

[glasspilot]

Technically, no it wasn't.

 

[Clutch]

Technically, no it wasn't.

Maybe not in 1998 at ACA

 

[glasspilot]

It was 2005 and I was pretty upfront about my reference. It wasn't my average weight program. I didn't write the rules. The FAA approved the program. Under it, gate-checked carry ons (the ones in the back cargo) weighed 10 lbs. If they were not gate-checked and instead came on board with the pax then the weight was considered to be part of the pax average weight.

If that has changed then I'd like to know how the rule has changed. Do they add the 10 lbs even if it's in the cabin or do they try to write a rule that says you can't move bags to accommodate a JS? Don't just tell me it's "technically prohibited", instead tell me what's different from the average weight program I just described.

 

[Clutch]

It was 2005 and I was pretty upfront about my reference. It wasn't my average weight program. I didn't write the rules. The FAA approved the program. Under it, gate-checked carry ons (the ones in the back cargo) weighed 10 lbs. If they were not gate-checked and instead came on board with the pax then the weight was considered to be part of the pax average weight.

If that has changed then I'd like to know how the rule has changed. Do they add the 10 lbs even if it's in the cabin or do they try to write a rule that says you can't move bags to accommodate a JS? Don't just tell me it's "technically prohibited", instead tell me what's different from the average weight program I just described.

I told you in my first post. Some carriers don't allow carry-ons in the cabin, only "personal items". If it's checked at the gate, it's most likely not getting in the cabin.

They are now 20 lbs, so you would only need to move 9 into the cabin, if it wasn't prohibited.

 

[glasspilot]

So you would only have to move 9. Makes it easier then. You have to work with the rules, however crazy, you have. It wasn't "technically prohibited" when we did it.

It's a sore spot for me because I was a commuter and saw plenty of guys not doing what they could legally do to help a brother out. Obviously if revenue is being kicked off for whatever reason then the JS is out of luck. But many many times RJ drivers are just saying "no" for no reason.

 

[Clutch]

So you would only have to move 9. Makes it easier then. You have to work with the rules, however crazy, you have. It wasn't "technically prohibited" when we did it.

It's a sore spot for me because I was a commuter and saw plenty of guys not doing what they could legally do to help a brother out. Obviously if revenue is being kicked off for whatever reason then the JS is out of luck. But many many times RJ drivers are just saying "no" for no reason.

This policy is fairly new. In the past, we used to use the same moving-of-bags to get jumpseaters on. However, the new policy limits this when you never know who is on board observing.

Also, there is only so much "lying" with the acars you can do. You can't say you have 7200 pounds of gas when you really have 8000. That's just ridiculous. But, sometimes, that is the only solution other than entering 16 kids in the front. But, that raises a huge red, false flag, because 16 12 year olds don't usually fly around together.

When you are overweight by adding balast, and you are forward of CG without it, there really isn't much you can do. Today's technology and the "no carry-on on the CR2" policy really ties our hands.

 

[sinkrate]

ACA did, however that was 6 years ago and they're defunct now. At the time a carry on weighed 10 lbs if it was checked in the cargo and zero if it was in the cabin (actually it was simply included in the pax average weight, but that's the same thing as zero really).

So you just move 18 of them into the cabin and you magically have the weight for the JS. Weather you actually move them or not is up to you. Point is there's never (almost) a valid reason to leave a JS behind.

The FAA fixed that after the overweight and out of CG B1900 hit the hanger in CLT. All carry ons are now 30 pounds.

The problem isn't CG. It is exceeding the maximum certificated landing weight when using a completely automated, and integrated, dispatch/load manifest/performance system. If the computer sees you are going to land over weight with the load/fuel/route you have it kills the dispatch release. You won't get a thing out of it until you fix the problem. Creating more weight by moving carry ons to cargo would make it worse.

Welcome to the 21st century. I've been using this automated system for eleven years now and hope I never have to go back to the dark ages like ACA/ASA/CMR. The only disadvantage is you get caught when you cheat.

 

[glasspilot]

That overweight 1900 in CLT was like a decade ago. Regardless, sinkrate, this was just a stupid side discussion while I was waiting for you to get back on that whole "MZFW to MLW is only a 3K split so I can't launch on a 45 minute flight" thing. Have you conceeded that one or do you still think you have a point in there somewhere?

Trust me, I'd much rather talk about that than some old w&b policy.

 

[Stifler's Mom]

Things the Captain should do to help out jumpseaters.... drop the Alternate and its fuel if one isn't needed, lower the Hold fuel, don't take any Extra fuel, find a closer alternate if one is needed. Now that it is summer, there are more kids on the planes and we are using summer weights.

The first thing I check is whether or not we have an alternate, and is it needed? I try to take 50+1 on every flight.

 

[SiuDude]

I have had airports as close or closer to ATL just take an estimated wheels time. I understand what you're saying, but does the decision to wait or get an expected wheels up from the crew up to the discretion of the controller? I would think if the crew gave a time and couldn't meet it, that it would be their fault and they'd have to deal with any further delay. That being said, why would a controller care if they don't make the time? He/she isn't the one sitting with the added delay if any, so why not call with what the crew gives as an EWU every time?

The controller in the tower does not usually have discretion as to when to call the TMU for release. That procedure is spelled out by the center in question.
For example, ZJX requests estimated wheels up times from aircraft 30 minutes prior to departure. So, when coming out of MCO or PNS to ATL, you can call ground or clearance, and give them an ETD.
Mobile, which is located in ZHU, obviously has a different procedure dictated by Houston Center, and does not want you calling for release until beginning taxi.