Let’s see; at 380 pounds an hour, we should land with 400 pounds total. This is my bingo fuel for our Cheyenne and is permissible only when our destination is VFR and no delays, holds, vectors or early descents are anticipated. I have a little hand calculator that I bought for three dollars at Staples almost 15 years ago. I use it on long flights to calculate and recalculate our arrival fuel. The calculator I consider to be part of the minimum equipment list for long flights.
I’ve worked this problem many times, and over time I have gotten comfortable with the airplane’s limitations and my own capacity for sustaining fuel anxiety. I keep a little spiral notebook in which I record each flight. I break out a new one each year when the airplane comes back from what has become an annual inspection. The notebook is sort of a poor man’s engine trend monitor.
