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Ballast Fuel


8252
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Brothers,

I am putting together a NATOPS change to include an easy to understand definition of \"Ballast Fuel\". Our NATOPS does not mention it at all. This has been a source of much debate and a soure of confusion to trainees. I am a Little Rock trained FE and was trained on this. The new trainees are not being tought TOLD data the same.

My understanding is to use the Fuel Management charts to find the required landing fuel in the wings for a specific cargo weight. Then to get your g load factor and max airspeed. Which is usually only a factor in the decent. I understand that this is usually only a consideration over approx. 30k cargo. Further, my understanding is to keep enough fuel in the wings to maintain structural integrity and avoid stresses from a heavy center-line load that would cause a high degree of bending in a \"light\" wing without fuel.

Your opinions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

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Easy to understand definition of \"Ballast Fuel\"... RIGHT!!!

Try \"Ballast Fuel\"... is defined as \"Extra\" fuel carried and distributed in a manner that allows flight operations to be conducted in a more desirable area (A,B,C,D) of the Primary fuel management chart.

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Air force calls it Wing Relieving Fuel and the definition is additional fuel kept in the main tanks intended to counter wing bending moments.

Also the air force says it is normally negligible below cargo weight of 35k. They also include minimum landing fuel of 4,000 as part of the Wing Relieving Fuel.

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Wasn\'t it called \"wing limiting fuel\" back in the 60\'s and 70\'s?

And the 80\'s, 90\'s....and today...

I first heard the term Ballast fuel when I flew with the Navy... I always called it Wing limiting fuel...

Same, Same....

8252 drop me a note so I can get in touch off-line...

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Just as an FYI on ballast fuel, if we had to ferry an empty DC-10 freighter & we didn\'t have ballast pallets (we never did), 50,000# of ballest fuel had to be carried in the aux tank for w & b. That\'s more than half the BOW for a C-130! I had the hardest time getting used to the big numbers on the 10 compared to the Herc.

Don R.

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