[Falcon 4 BMS] Mirage 2000-5 : Fuel management test flight

BRIEFING

I will take-off from Akrotiri Airbase (LCRA) and fly to Port Said (HEPS) where I shall execute a missed approach and divert to As Salihiya airport where I will land.

During the flight, I will do 4 different branches :
From take-off to WP 2 : at 20,000 ft and TAS 480 kt for 30 nm
WP 2 to WP 3 : 20,000 ft, TAS 540 kt for 45 nm
WP 3 to WP 4 : 5,000 ft, TAS 540 kt for 45 nm
WP 4 to WP 5 : 5000 ft, TAS 480 for 45 nm
WP 5 to WP 6 : 5000 ft, TAS 360 for 58 nm

then the missed approach

And finally flying to the alternate airfield at 5,000ft, TAS 360 kt for 14 nm

About fuel management now.

I will start with a full load of 13846 lb

Rampstart and taxi should burn 600 lb, thus before take off I should be around 13,200 lb.

Taking off and climbing to FL350 burns another 1400 lb which leaves around 11,800 lb.

Then:

• WP1 to WP2 burns 30x14 = 420 lb, fuel left : 11,400 lb
• WP2 to WP3 burns 45x15 = 675 lb, fuel left : 10,700 lb
• WP3 to WP4 burns 45x23 = 1035 lb, fuel left : 9,700 lb 
• WP4 to WP5 burns 45x22 = 990 lb, fuel left : 8,700 lb
• WP5 to WP6 burns 58x19 = 1102 lb, fuel left : 7,600 lb

 The missed approach costs 1000lb

And flying to the alternate airfield burns 14x19 = 266 lb so that in the end I should have no lower than 6300 lb left.
 For this exercise I set the Bingo fuel at 6300 lb to monitor the final result.

FLIGHT

After rampstart and taxi I only burnt 250 lb instead of the 400 lb I expected. This is only due to the fact that I had included the take off in this part where it's now included in the climbing toward FL350. I will have to change the value to 300 lb.

Then I flew the ascent to the FL350 which costed me 2000 lb instead of the 1400 lb intended.
This difference may be explained by the fact I circled arround the airfield during the climb to stay at my first way-point and I forgot to set my altimeter to the 1013 hPa required to use flight levels so I may have flown higher than I should. Furthermore I have an heavier load than in Topolo's charts ( 33.500 lb instead of 26.600 lb total weight).

Flying from WP1 to WP2 I should have burnt 420 lb and I only used 350. The reason is I had to descend from FL350 to FL200 during this step. This saved me 70 lb.

From WP2 to WP3, I had calculated a consumption of 675 lb and I burnt 750 lb. I assume this is due to the overweight.
From WP3 to WP4, 1035 lb calculated, 700 lb burnt. Once again I had to descend from FL220 to 5,000ft which saved quite a lot of fuel.
From WP4 to WP5, 990 lb calculated, 800 lb burnt and from WP5 to WP6, 1102 lb calculated, 900 lb burnt. In both cases, I spent around 200 lb less than intended.
All these differences might be due to the fact that calculated consumptions are rounded to a higher value for safety purposes.

Then I did the aborted landing and navigated to the divert airfield.
When finally the bingo fuel occured, I was in short final! Which is not too bad in deed!
After landing I had 6200 lb left in my tanks, only 100 lb less than I should have.

In conclusion I think I will have to do the exercise again to improve my accuracy in flight parameters...