Narrative:

The captain and I were a reserve crew assigned to fly aircraft for heavy maintenance. This flight was to be flown with the gear down. In the crew room we received the flight release/paperwork and my captain had a speaker phone conversation with a maintenance technician regarding our ferry flight. The technician suggested we alter our cruise altitude from FL320 down to FL280 for operational concerns. There were no weather factors at FL280 so we agreed. My captain next called dispatch to have us re-planned and re-filed at FL280. We awaited the new release and paperwork to generate and print. Upon receiving the new release; we saw all the indications of the ferry flight and noted we were going have (if I remember correctly) around 78;000 lbs of total fuel. Per the flight plan we had plenty of fuel for this trip. We proceeded with a normal preflight and departure to cruise altitude. Upon reaching cruise flight; I as the pilot monitoring; began calculating our fuel progress. I noticed at the first checkpoint that we were on schedule but down approximately 2;000lbs of fuel than were we should be. At subsequent points on the flight plan I noted that our fuel burn was a lot higher than planned and nearing ZZZ VOR we were down by close to 10;000lbs of fuel and I brought this to the captain's attention. As the flight progressed the captain slowed our speed to 220 KIAS which brought our fuel burn down from 18;000PPH total to approximately 14;500 pph and also began an ACARS dialog with dispatch. The ACARS messages were a slow communications process so we discussed our options. I pointed out that ZZZ2 was our filed alternate but ZZZ3 was also a possibility. We pulled weather and ran a divert flight plan in the secondary function of the FMS. At this time we were close to a point abeam ZZZ2 and close to making a decision to divert to ZZZ2 or ZZZ3 so the captain made a satellite call with dispatch and they agreed on ZZZ2. We diverted and landed with no problems. At block in we had approximately 17;000 lbs usable fuel with 15;700lbs as ballast in the upper aux tank. We refueled; re-dispatched and continued to ZZZ1 without further incident. It was later discovered (after the termination of the second leg) that when the flight release/plan was refiled with FL280 as cruise; the note gear down was missing from the cruise portion of the planned cruise mach. Therefore the plan was for a normal flight and not for a gear down flight. Neither myself; my captain; nor our dispatcher caught the error. This event highlights the importance of fuel and time updates during the cruise portion of the flight.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: MD-11 flight crew reported having to divert for fuel after being dispatched with less than required fuel.

Narrative: The Captain and I were a reserve crew assigned to fly Aircraft for heavy maintenance. This flight was to be flown with the gear down. In the crew room we received the flight release/paperwork and my Captain had a speaker phone conversation with a maintenance technician regarding our ferry flight. The technician suggested we alter our cruise altitude from FL320 down to FL280 for operational concerns. There were no weather factors at FL280 so we agreed. My Captain next called dispatch to have us re-planned and re-filed at FL280. We awaited the new release and paperwork to generate and print. Upon receiving the new release; we saw all the indications of the ferry flight and noted we were going have (If I remember correctly) around 78;000 lbs of total fuel. Per the flight plan we had plenty of fuel for this trip. We proceeded with a normal preflight and departure to cruise altitude. Upon reaching cruise flight; I as the Pilot Monitoring; began calculating our fuel progress. I noticed at the first checkpoint that we were on schedule but down approximately 2;000lbs of fuel than were we should be. At subsequent points on the flight plan I noted that our fuel burn was a lot higher than planned and nearing ZZZ VOR we were down by close to 10;000lbs of fuel and I brought this to the Captain's attention. As the flight progressed the captain slowed our speed to 220 KIAS which brought our fuel burn down from 18;000PPH total to approximately 14;500 PPH and also began an ACARS dialog with dispatch. The ACARS messages were a slow communications process so we discussed our options. I pointed out that ZZZ2 was our filed alternate but ZZZ3 was also a possibility. We pulled weather and ran a divert flight plan in the secondary function of the FMS. At this time we were close to a point abeam ZZZ2 and close to making a decision to divert to ZZZ2 or ZZZ3 so the captain made a Satellite call with dispatch and they agreed on ZZZ2. We diverted and landed with no problems. At block in we had approximately 17;000 lbs usable fuel with 15;700lbs as ballast in the upper aux tank. We refueled; re-dispatched and continued to ZZZ1 without further incident. It was later discovered (after the termination of the second leg) that when the flight release/plan was refiled with FL280 as cruise; the note GEAR DOWN was missing from the cruise portion of the planned cruise mach. Therefore the plan was for a normal flight and not for a gear down flight. Neither myself; my captain; nor our dispatcher caught the error. This event highlights the importance of fuel and time updates during the cruise portion of the flight.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site and automatically converted to unabbreviated mixed upper/lowercase text. This report is for informational purposes with no guarantee of accuracy. See NASA's ASRS site for official report.