Delta Virtual Airlines Water Cooler - Flight Assignments Improvement Suggestion

Delta Virtual Airlines Water Cooler | Airline Operations | Flight Assignments Improvement Suggestion

DVA1641
Captain, B777-200

Joined on March 22 2004
Everett Century Club
Globetrotter
Double Century Club
DVA Fifteen-Year Anniversary

"NATCA - FAA Controller"
Hartford, CT

292 legs, 1,319.5 hours
66 legs, 235.0 hours online
222 legs, 1,105.0 hours ACARS
5 legs, 35.2 hours event

Posted onPost created on February 17 2014 19:06 ET by Rob Hernandez

Hey everyone!

I'd like to see how many people would be interested in making a slight modification to the flight assignment feature on the website. I enjoy the fact that I am able to pick and choose my flights and keep them nice and organized until they are ready to be flown. One thing that I feel is lacking is the idea of a sort of load sheet provided for the flight. I know that there is an option on ACARS that allows the number of passengers to be edited on the flight or have ACARS randomly select a number of pax. The only problem is by the time I hit "Start Flight", all my payload calcs have been completed and a randomly generated pax count is useless to me at that point.

So, here's my suggestion; develop a way that when a flight assignment is chosen, a loadsheet is generated for that flight. This loadsheet would include some of the information that you typically see in a real loadsheet. One figure in particular I would like to see generated is a ZFW. The reason for this is what I said before; by the time I'm ready to start my ACARS flight, it is pointless for me to make the adjustments for the number of pax ACARS wants to assign to the flight. Instead, if that number can be converted to a ZFW before the flight, I think it would greatly improve the flight planning experience for everyone. I feel like this adds more realism to the entire experience since you not fly fully loaded 100% of the time. Moreover, this loadsheet can omit the fuel on board, since that is the responsibility of the PIC (per DVA SOP).

What are everyone's thoughts on this?

Rob Hernandez

Captain, B777-200

DVA11882
Captain, L-1011-100

Joined on December 23 2013
50 State Club
Century Club

Midwestern United States

102 legs, 189.8 hours
101 legs, 187.6 hours ACARS

Posted onPost created on February 18 2014 09:49 ET by Bob Baur

I see where you are coming from with this & it was an issue for me as well.

What I do now is after I load fuel (I like to use the ACARS to load fuel because it is so easy to change the level in each tank) I decline to load PAX & cargo. It still gives you the statistics on how many PAX are on board. I then start the flight & use FSPassengers to load my PAX & cargo.

Bob Baur

Captain, L-1011-100

DVA11781
Captain, MD-11

Joined on October 03 2013
Everett 250 Club
Million Mile Club
DVA Two-Year Anniversary
Quatercentenary Club

Northeastern United States

Posted onPost created on February 18 2014 10:14 ET by Joe Cappelo

I use PFPX and simbrief and FSC to plan my flights and they all come up with fuel load calcs, ZFW, loadsheets and all that info...I just input whatever amount of passengers those programs say into ACARS using the manual pax count...works out great for me!

Joe Cappelo (DVA11781)

Posted onPost created on February 18 2014 11:41 ET by Rob Hernandez

Thanks for you input Bob and Joe.

I use PFPX, TOPCAT and FSC to plan my flights. On my LDS 767, I use TOPCAT to inject the payload amounts right into the sim. With the PMDG products however, the NGX and MD11 do not take too kind (if at all) to you inputing payload through any other method except their FMC or load manager software.

So my thinking is that if we get a randomly generated ZFW prior to the flight, we can input those into our sims whichever way we choose. This also adds to the whole flight "assignment" concept. The airline would know how many pax and cargo it would be taking into the flight. It wouldn't be the pilot's job to figure that out. It would just be to verify it.

Just my two cents - what does everyone else think?

Rob Hernandez

Captain, B777-200

DVA11021
Captain, B757-200
OLP

Joined on September 13 2012
B757 100 Club
Everett 250 Club
Triple Century Club
Online Triple Century Club
DVA Five-Year Anniversary

Milford, NH

375 legs, 620.5 hours
365 legs, 604.5 hours online
374 legs, 618.9 hours ACARS
21 legs, 51.4 hours event

Posted onPost created on February 18 2014 12:02 ET by Sean Zarella

I use acars to load fuel pax , my cargo and pax weights are already configured in my b752, and i selected DisablePayloadDialogWeightModif =1; in fspax config options, so allows me to use fspax load pax and no effect on load or change station data.

Sean Zarella (DVA11021)

Posted onPost created on February 18 2014 12:13 ET by Sean Zarella

Rob we know our planes OEW, so the only thing that will change the zfw is pax and cargo. If we have a random pax and cargo count. we can then Know the ZFW and configure CG% as is done in real world.
So to mimic real world assignments is the route. On that day we know how many Pax boarded and how much cargo was on, and by the loadsheet we configure CG% .
Would be good to get a radomly generated Pax and cargo count per each flight, for now i manually setup my flights via acars.

Sean Zarella (DVA11021)

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