VIRFuel is a fuel and weight calculation application designed for Boeing 787, 747, Airbus A340, 330 operations using the Sabre flight plan. The application is in metric tonnes and conforms to SOPs used for Virgin Atlantic operations.
Fuel and weight data is inserted from the front page of the flight plan (the plan figures) and can then be updated with desired loads and actual figures from the final ZFW/loadsheet. Changes in zero-fuel weight calculate updates to trip fuel and suggest a new ramp fuel. Alternatively a manually entered ramp fuel, touchdown fuel or required extra fuel at destination will calculate updates to trip fuel and ramp fuel.
At each stage a take-off weight will be updated and TODC/OPT weights calculated (a TODC buffer of 1T is used). For near maximum weight plans, Std and Aft CG RTOW weights can be provided to calculate a maximum possible ZFW & Ramp fuel combination.
Fuel uplift calculations in Litres and USG with commonly used density units are available to ensure an indicated versus calculated fuel load within +/-1.5%. A representation of the Aircraft Fuel Book can be shown for the easy entry or cross-checking of log book entries.
Finally, flight plan waypoint fuel checks can be updated for changes in trip fuel burn.
Internal cross-checking is performed and aircraft type limits can be set using the application settings menu or from the plan input page. Engineers have the option to skip directly to the fuel uplift page. A swipe-to-reveal calculator has time addition and unit conversion functions.
A list of favourite airports can be maintained for which TAF and Metar reports can be downloaded from the NOAA ADDS service. The reports are crosschecked for format errors, download errors and time validity. A colour coded system will highlight wind/visibility/weather/cloud fields that may have operationally significant values. RMK fields are not comprehensively scanned for all decodes and runway states or local variations in format are not necessarily decoded.