User546
The Ultimate Show Stopper
- Joined
- Jan 24, 2004
- Posts
- 1,958
Well to preface this, this particular Captain I was flying with is a major "better to have too much fuel, then too little" believer, and if it even gets marginal about having enough fuel, we always do a fuel diversion just to be safe. Even when the passengers complain and raise bloody h*ll with him about it. But this day, everything was conspiring against us it seemed!
The story in short goes: We had a setback at Customs where we were suppose to take on more fuel. No fuel was put on in the ensuing distractions. We ended up having 167 kt direct headwinds (248 kt GS!) all the way to our destination (changed from FL350 all the way to FL450 looking for better, but it kept getting worse.) Got put on an arrival that we couldnt negotiate a "direct to" clearance, and when the fuel situation turned critical is when they made us descend down to 15,000 feet, over 100+ miles out. About 50 miles out we start getting the Yellow Caution lights, and the "fuel at destination" was depleting it seemed like by the second. We finally declared "Min Fuel" but they still weren't cooperating with us. As we were being vectored onto the downwind, we were informed that we'd be #5 for landing out on a 25 mile final. We weren't feeling lucky anymore, so the "Emergency Fuel" gloves came out, and we got vectored right onto the numbers ahead of everyone else. On final all I remember doing was staring at the fuel tank indicator, and watching every number tick off, thinking to myself we might not have enough fuel for a go-around, and praying that nothing popped out in front of us on final. That and the annoying Yellow Caution kept going off every 5 seconds!
I do believe a couple years were taking off my life from the high blood pressure and stress that came during the last 20+ minutes of that flight when we realized it was going to be real marginal. To tell you how close it was, we were considering diverting to an airport that was only 30 miles outside of this town for fuel!
Now, I want to hear what on earth you've had to declare 6 emergencies for!
The story in short goes: We had a setback at Customs where we were suppose to take on more fuel. No fuel was put on in the ensuing distractions. We ended up having 167 kt direct headwinds (248 kt GS!) all the way to our destination (changed from FL350 all the way to FL450 looking for better, but it kept getting worse.) Got put on an arrival that we couldnt negotiate a "direct to" clearance, and when the fuel situation turned critical is when they made us descend down to 15,000 feet, over 100+ miles out. About 50 miles out we start getting the Yellow Caution lights, and the "fuel at destination" was depleting it seemed like by the second. We finally declared "Min Fuel" but they still weren't cooperating with us. As we were being vectored onto the downwind, we were informed that we'd be #5 for landing out on a 25 mile final. We weren't feeling lucky anymore, so the "Emergency Fuel" gloves came out, and we got vectored right onto the numbers ahead of everyone else. On final all I remember doing was staring at the fuel tank indicator, and watching every number tick off, thinking to myself we might not have enough fuel for a go-around, and praying that nothing popped out in front of us on final. That and the annoying Yellow Caution kept going off every 5 seconds!
I do believe a couple years were taking off my life from the high blood pressure and stress that came during the last 20+ minutes of that flight when we realized it was going to be real marginal. To tell you how close it was, we were considering diverting to an airport that was only 30 miles outside of this town for fuel!
Now, I want to hear what on earth you've had to declare 6 emergencies for!
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