Insanely unhealthy flying spree

[Aleksi Laine]

Hi,

just wanted to share what my week consists of: flying. Until next Monday no girlfriends, friends, dogs, work or school to disturb me, and it seems that I decided that I want to fly a lot. So I've been flying a lot. I started yesterday afternoon and have flown non-stop. I slept maybe 3 hours last night during a flight across the States, and 20 minutes during the day above the Atlantic.

Sleeping while flying is not exactly responsible though, especially on VATSIM but I set my alarm well before the plane should need my attention and turn my speakers on loud so if anyone misses me, I'll wake up to the message tone.

My so far non-stop flown routes are:
KJFK-KSFO-TXKF-EICK(diversion)-LOWW-LOWI-LOWW

I've also planned ahead, since I bought a few new sceneries in South America, and want to check them out. After that, if I can make it, I want be in Toronto for their event. That's on Friday morning 0200-0500z. I've calculated my timetable and I might just be able to squeeze this plan there:
LOWW-LPPT-SBGL-SAES-SCEL-SPIM-CYYZ

I'm very happy if I can make it to Toronto at around 0400z on Friday, but that requires no FSX CTDs or mishaps with the Flight Keeper. After Toronto I might take a short break. I only want to be in Heathrow on Saturday at noon to catch the "PMDG 777X Groupflight" to Dubai, although it seems that there won't be any PMDG T7s involved in that event

Tonight I'm going to sleep well during my 10-hour flight to Rio de Janeiro, unless some oceanic control decides to show up :rofl:

I don't know what got into me, I was supposed to go to sleep after flying the JFK-SFO leg, but here we are... Anyways, just wanted to share my adventure with you people

Aleksi

 

[Barthe Hogenboom]

I recognize this pattern, although I'm a little less extreme. Sleep deprivation mostly results in mistakes and aircraft crashes for me. So if I want to make a longer trip, I cut it up in legs. I chose the 737 as my regular aircraft, that helps because it simply can't fly almost around the world in one go like the 777 can.

My habit is mostly doing A LOT of preparation for a flight in the form of merging the perfect aircraft, with the perfect livery. Installing and tweaking arrival, destination and some extra airports. Doing some test flights. Adding some 2d-panels, making some XML-gauges that might by handy. Etc. Sometimes almost forgetting what the actual goal was.

although it seems that there won't be any PMDG T7s involved in that event

Considering

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there won't be many. But if I understand correctly it was to be released very soon?

Tonight I'm going to sleep well during my 10-hour flight to Rio de Janeiro, unless some oceanic control decides to show up

Oh, well your dog could always bark a bit into the mic, they'll understand.

My conclusion: you need a copilot. Maybe someone you know or someone on-line via a cockpit sharing app?

 

[Aleksi Laine]

My habit is mostly doing A LOT of preparation for a flight

And I'm more about the flying and less about preparation A good example: I just got my MD11 in the air towards Rio de Janeiro, and immediately the FMC tells me that I have too little fuel. I check and it has calculated that I'd have 2.5 tonnes of fuel on arrival, and considering I'm going west against the winds, that is much less than I'd like. I guess I should make a habit of checking the FMC's calculations rather than trusting Air-Child's fuel planner blindly. It just let me down yesterday (thus the diversion).

But if I understand correctly it was to be released very soon?

All I know is that they said a little over month ago that it's "practically ready". I haven't found any official sources for release date hints.

My conclusion: you need a copilot. Maybe someone you know or someone on-line via a cockpit sharing app?

I don't know a single person who would be interested enough to fly any longer than 10 minutes and to be honest, I like the privacy of my cockpit. I don't have a problem with this arrangement as long as no one else does And I usually stick to flying flights that can be completed during my awake-time It would be fun to be able to share a cockpit with a friend though...

Now as my plane is safely cruising in the air and no oceanic controllers or Vatsim supervisors are in sight, I'm gonna go to sleep and then hopefully wake to find my plane still in the air with enough fuel to reach some land :rofl: I'll leave her in the hands of my imaginary co-pilot.

 

[Barthe Hogenboom]

rather than trusting Air-Child's fuel planner blindly

I've actually never seen it being correct. But of course it's mentioned somewhere that you should add contingency fuel yourself. To me that means: do the calculation yourself or at least let the FMC do it. Problem is; even if someone would test every flight and upload the correct figures, it would still be debated if that's correct. A POSKY 737 uses much more fuel than a PMDG one for instance. The only way would be to get the correct figures from a real airline. But then we have to stick to that exact route and still have variables like wind etc.

I don't know a single person who would be interested enough to fly any longer than 10 minutes

I know, same here. I have 2 flightsim pc's, for about 1,5 years now. But I've never flown on my LAN with anyone else than...well myself. "Ik wou dat ik twee hondjes was" - Some Dutch poem.

and then hopefully wake to find my plane still in the air with enough fuel to reach some land

As long as you don't fly with FSPassengers that's alright. FSP has no knowledge of "diversions" so it goes "you landed at the wrong airport without having an emergency". And then robs you of a lot of points. :'(

 

[Aleksi Laine]

Woke up after 7 hours of sleep to a supervisor checking if I'm still here. They seem to do these checks on almost every flight that are more than 4 or 5 hours long. At first I was too tired to realise that I got a message and continued sleeping. Luckily he asked me again 10 minutes later. Then I jumped up to reply

All good with fuel. As usual, the FMC gave a cautious estimation and I should now be well able to even taxi to gate in SBGL

I've actually never seen it being correct.

I've used it on 175 flights without any problem. Sometimes I've had maybe a little too much fuel, but not too often. It seems to do the worst estimations for the PMDG MD11. On one flight I had 11 tonnes fuel too much and on another I had to land 400 nm short of destination All other planes have had pretty good calculations.

Oh, by the way, my MD11s are weird. During these two flights on which I've had worries over fuel, I've noticed that using the "max end" option for cruise actually uses more fuel than anything else, and the higher cost index I use, the more fuel I'll save. The speed definitely increases with CI though... But this flight, trying "max end" in the beginning, the FMC calculated that I won't have any fuel left at destination. Setting the CI to 90 gave the 2.5 tonnes. Setting 120 increased to 2.6, so that's what I used for this flight. Is there something I might be doing wrong, or could there possibly be a fault in a PMDG plane? Or is it just the fact that I don't bother to give any weather data to the FMC...?

As long as you don't fly with FSPassengers that's alright. FSP has no knowledge of "diversions" so it goes "you landed at the wrong airport without having an emergency". And then robs you of a lot of points.

Hahah yeah, not using FSPassengers. From what I've heard, their passengers seem to complain about a lot of things. I like it when my passengers just sit quietly in the back

 

[Aleksi Laine]

Way to arrive to see your beautiful new scenery: In dark and 500 meters visibility

 

[Aleksi Laine]

And for the moment I landed, the visibility was actually 100 meters....... worst visibility I've ever had with real world weather :') things got a little exciting when I rushed a little too much and the autopilot missed the glideslope. Had to get her down by hand and initially I was way off glideslope and localiser. I only got to the right path at around 300 feet AGL. It really is surprisingly difficult to find a runway using only the ILS. I could only see the runway when I was on it. Would have gone around but I don't think I would have had the fuel. I shut down engines with 1.5 tonnes of fuel left.

Took off from SBGL towards SCEL with a little bit better visibility. At least I could see the terminal around me. I found a direct flight to SCEL that I didn't see before so that should save me about 1 h 45 min not having to go to SAES. So I should be able to make it to Toronto well on time

The journey continues....

 

[Barthe Hogenboom]

Woke up after 7 hours of sleep to a supervisor checking if I'm still here.

If I could make an application that would give controllers some intelligent answers it would make a lot of sleeping on-line pilots happy. Finally...there's my get rich quick scheme. :lol:

Let us know if you arrive safely. Every real-world airline would have you grounded by now for not obeying rest requirements, even Ryanair. :rofl:

I bet you sleep for 3 days after this adventure.

 

[Aleksi Laine]

If I could make an application that would give controllers some intelligent answers it would make a lot of sleeping on-line pilots happy.

I wouldn't mind being your beta-tester

Another progress report:

Took a 90 minute nap on my way to Chile and feeling perfectly fine again. Landing in Santiago at night was pretty amazing. Of course I would have liked to see the surrounding hills and mountains in daylight, but the lights of the city were really beautiful and the LatinVFR airport scenery had a really nice night-lighting as well. I'm just loving my FTXG Oh, and when arriving, I was blown away when the AES marshaller greeted me in Spanish!

Approaching SCEL I decided to do a STAR using raw data only for a change and then circle for final with a VOR approach in 3 mile visibility. VATSIM was a new and exciting challenge 6 months ago but now I'm starting to look for challenges in flying itself. I've always liked just pushing buttons and watching the plane do stuff by itself, but now I'm finally getting into flying by hand.

Now I took a 767 and am enroute towards Lima in morning light. I got a little behind schedule on last flight but now it seems that I'm catching up LatinVFRs airport scenery was really good in daylight as well, but it didn't blend so well into the FTXG surroundings, since its ground was way lighter than that of FTXG's.

Apparently this thread became a journal. Maybe I should become a blogger, this is fun :lol:

 

[Aleksi Laine]

Charts for SPIM nowhere to be found, if anyone can help me within the next two and a half hours, I'd appreciate it

 

[Mike Sharpe]

Charts for SPIM nowhere to be found, if anyone can help me within the next two and a half hours, I'd appreciate it

http://www.firlima.pe/cartas/SPIM.pdf

http://southerncrossairways.com/descarg ... u/SPIM.pdf

 

[Mike Sharpe]

Woke up after 7 hours of sleep to a supervisor checking if I'm still here. They seem to do these checks on almost every flight that are more than 4 or 5 hours long. At first I was too tired to realise that I got a message and continued sleeping. Luckily he asked me again 10 minutes later. Then I jumped up to reply

All good with fuel. As usual, the FMC gave a cautious estimation and I should now be well able to even taxi to gate in SBGL

I've actually never seen it being correct.

I've used it on 175 flights without any problem. Sometimes I've had maybe a little too much fuel, but not too often. It seems to do the worst estimations for the PMDG MD11. On one flight I had 11 tonnes fuel too much and on another I had to land 400 nm short of destination All other planes have had pretty good calculations.

Oh, by the way, my MD11s are weird. During these two flights on which I've had worries over fuel, I've noticed that using the "max end" option for cruise actually uses more fuel than anything else, and the higher cost index I use, the more fuel I'll save. The speed definitely increases with CI though... But this flight, trying "max end" in the beginning, the FMC calculated that I won't have any fuel left at destination. Setting the CI to 90 gave the 2.5 tonnes. Setting 120 increased to 2.6, so that's what I used for this flight. Is there something I might be doing wrong, or could there possibly be a fault in a PMDG plane? Or is it just the fact that I don't bother to give any weather data to the FMC...?

As long as you don't fly with FSPassengers that's alright. FSP has no knowledge of "diversions" so it goes "you landed at the wrong airport without having an emergency". And then robs you of a lot of points.

Hahah yeah, not using FSPassengers. From what I've heard, their passengers seem to complain about a lot of things. I like it when my passengers just sit quietly in the back

Hi Aleksi,

Selecting the "MAX END" option in the FMS is the calibrated airspeed (CAS) which provides the maximum endurance (time aloft) and also provides the minimum drag (not editable).
Using this option on the ground will give a predicted less fuel usage as you haven't burned any weight off yet. Other factors also are not being considered such as wind predictions, current FL, current SPD etc.

A higher CI entry will result in higher speeds and predict less fuel burn especially on longer flights as you will be flying a faster speed your aircraft weight drops faster resulting in less fuel being burnt to carry a "lighter" load. CI is calculated on Cost of Time/Cost of Fuel. I usually use a CI entry of 80-100 on the PMDG MD-11.

One thing that will make a big difference in your final fuel is your CRZ flight level/Aircraft weight.
If you can start with an initial climb altitude at the point where your aircraft is more heavy then any point in the flight then step up as your aircraft become's lighter this will have a big effect on final fuel predictions and fuel savings.

Next time you try a flight with the MD-11 you might like to try using the step climb option found on the CRZ entry level page in the FMS.
For example 300/320/340. This will allow the FMS to calculate the optimum time to "Step Up" along your FMS entered route resulting in minimum trip cost.

You can also check the optimum/max flight level entry on the "Active CRZ page" in the FMS.
The PMDG is very accurate in calculating this based on your aircraft weights.
If your current CRZ altitude varies greatly from the optimum altitude, you are burning more fuel then required. Obviously ATC and weather conditions can play a part in your flight level.

Not entering any weather condition's into the FMS will result in a slightly different flight path prediction, as the FMS bases this on many factors, one being predicted cruise winds.
But having accurate weather predictions is hard to have in FlightSim unless you have a weather program like Active-Sky which does indicate winds aloft/temps along your route.
Entering Temp/wind entry's isn't compulsory but it does help the FMS compute better predictions.
Hope i could help,
Mike.

 

[Aleksi Laine]

Hi Mike!

Oh so maximum endurance means maximum time aloft and not maximum distance? Then it makes sense. But about the cost index, is it really supposed to be that way that if you have a heavily loaded plane, a high CI can result in more fuel left at destination? I mean if a high cost index reduces BOTH time and amount of fuel used, isn't it against the whole concept of cost index? O.O

And yeah, I'm familiar with the step climbs and optimum flight levels. That's what I always base my cruising levels on. Always try to get initially as close to the optimum as I can and then do step climbs when the FMC tells me to. And I have AS2012, so I could just copy every waypoint's weather data into my FMC but that's just too much work for too little benefit.

 

[Barthe Hogenboom]

Hi, with all this I can't help wondering if calculating fuel with all these factors keeps the job interesting for real pilots or would they get so good at it after a few months on the same routes that it actually bores them? I know this is important to airlines. I also know about low-cost airlines like Ryanair that are being accused by the media for pressing their pilots to take on unsafe low amounts of fuel to keep the weight down.

There are different levels of simulation you can acquire; with some basic calculation and knowledge of the FMC you can make a safe, responsible flight. Especially on a typical medium distance flight. But if you want to achieve better economic performance or your flights are at the edge of your ac's range you've to dig deeper.

But having accurate weather predictions is hard to have in FlightSim unless you have a weather program like Active-Sky which does indicate winds aloft/temps along your route.

I think not knowing the wind direction and speed matters a lot. Real aircraft make use of various prevailing air-streams and wind directions at various FL. To me this is still higher science and probably it's not accurately simulated.

 

[Zeljko Budovic]

here you can find excelent freeware fuel planner for PMDG MD11(scroll down to post #107):

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or direct download link in case you don't want to make account:

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P.S. Aleksi, i understand you, i do this from time to time, the only difference is that i sleep

 

[Aleksi Laine]

Thank you Zeljko I might try it out.

I'd like to summarise my week:

- 34 flights
- 86 hours 18 minutes block time
- 33090 nautical miles
- Longest flight MD11 Toronto-Heraklion (CYYZ-LGIR) 4738 nm, 10:06
- Shortest flight 738 Philadelphia-JFK intl. (KPHL-KJFK) 117 nm 00:40

I had a lot of new experiences along the week, in order:

KSFO-TXKF:
- The first flight for which I had to actually plan the route by myself
- Learned a little about enroute charts and airways and vroute

TXKF-EICK:
- Learned that Air-Child's fuel planner doesn't do MD11 very well
- Diversion to Cork, a little under 7000ft rwy, fully loaded MD11, 2 mile visibility

LOWW-LOWI-LOWW:
- Took full advantage of "Weekly Wednesday" in Austria, amazingly fun approach and takeoff at Innsbruck

LPPT-SBGL:
- First time ever to South America, and was once again reminded of Air-Child's fuel planner's lacks
- On arrival a 100 meter visibility with no fuel for diversion or even go-around

SBGL-SCEL:
- Night flight with really beautiful city lights at Santiago (Go FTX Global!)

CYYZ-LGIR:
- Lot of trouble planning the route, learned a lot about flight planning

LGAV-LTBA-LGAV:
- My first visit to a CPT (LTBB_CTR)
- Failed CPT:
--> He forced me to log off because I had a collapsed landing gear on the runway (instructed to me by the examiner). Not allowed to force people to log off in exams I hear... And on my way back, it took me 50 minutes to get a clearance even though there wasn't that much traffic anymore.

LGAV-LATI:
- Learned something new about VORs and NDBs and how they work in FSX. Updated raw data again.

LOWL-LOWW-LHBP-LOWW:
- My first time on VATSIM with a Dash 7. Great fun causing some out of ordinary work for the controllers and learning about planning flights with only the basic navigation equipment.
- Also learned that I should not have bought the Aerosoft's Budapest scenery. Not very big nor detailed, but framerates are at Amsterdam's level. Also buggy. Waiting for the LHSim's scenery.

LOWW-EDDM:
- Was supposed to end at LOWI, but visibility went to zero during my visual final to rwy 26, and I was forced to divert. Exciting it was to be surrounded by mountains but not being able to see them.

EHRD-EHLE-EHBK-EHRD:
- First time properly flying the Twotter, and on VATSIM. Had some trouble with the navigation along the way, but learned from my mistakes.
- On the EHRD-EHLE leg I officially became an Air-Child Captain, and am now certified to fly any aircraft in Air-Child's hangar ^^ Very fitting for this to happen on a leg from Rotterdam. I used to learn to fly my Air-Child ATR and E190 there six months ago.

EHRD-EGLL:
- Joined Heathrow during the Euroshottle event. Probably the most aircraft I've ever seen on VATSIM. A good way to end my flying spree.

It was a rewarding week. Now I'm gonna have to keep a little break from flying frequently, since I need to do some holidaying and also soon start to prepare for school and then work as well.

Thank you Air-Child for providing a community to motivate me to learn so much new things about simulated flight.

Signing off,
Aleksi

 

[Barthe Hogenboom]

On the EHRD-EHLE leg I officially became an Air-Child Captain, and am now certified to fly any aircraft in Air-Child's hangar

If KLM gets it's way you might fly this leg with a 737 in the near future. They want to use EHLE for the budget airlines so they have EHAM almost for themselves.

Also learned that I should not have bought the Aerosoft's Budapest scenery. Not very big nor detailed, but framerates are at Amsterdam's level.

I've heard about their EHAM being a very heavy piece of scenery. The NL2000 freeware package(FSX) is also too heavy for my pc. For most airports I'm quite happy with a little ADE bgl but I know what EHAM really looks like. So I'm still thinking about that one. I wish there was something for it like the free version UK2000 airports. They're quite light.

Nice flying, I've seen your hours going up during the week. :goodjob:

 

[Mike Sharpe]

Hi Mike!

Oh so maximum endurance means maximum time aloft and not maximum distance? Then it makes sense. But about the cost index, is it really supposed to be that way that if you have a heavily loaded plane, a high CI can result in more fuel left at destination? I mean if a high cost index reduces BOTH time and amount of fuel used, isn't it against the whole concept of cost index? O.O

And yeah, I'm familiar with the step climbs and optimum flight levels. That's what I always base my cruising levels on. Always try to get initially as close to the optimum as I can and then do step climbs when the FMC tells me to. And I have AS2012, so I could just copy every waypoint's weather data into my FMC but that's just too much work for too little benefit.

Hi Aleksi,

Not always, depends on flight conditions wind etc. The main concept of the cost index is to achieve minimum trip cost by means of a trade off between operating costs per hour and incremental fuel burn. Things like cost of fuel per k/g, time related cost per minute of flight,fixed costs independent of time, trip time, trip fuel. The company dispatcher calculates this and provides it to flight crew.In the FSX world its up to us
Airbus have a department specialized in evaluating and modeling direct maintenance costs.

Oh cool, you have AS2012. When you enter your flight plan into AS you can check the average wind/temp for the entire flight plan and enter this into the MD-11 flight init page for it to calculate.

Take care,
Mike.