Range

[cmdrnmartin]

I think we should consider range.

Especially when flights like this 747 Domestic doing 9000nm pop up:

http://flynet.turksim.org/index.php?lan ... b&id=46131

For reference, no widebody can do that sort of distance that I am aware of. Maybe a 772LR, at a stretch, with a good tailwind.

Anyways, any ideas on how we could implement a range feature?

[tjbaughn]

If I remember right we said the 747D was not to fly over 2500 nm or maybe thats what our group set as a limit with the D class.

But after going to the boeing site it shows the max Range at 1805 nm. So our group will change from 2500 to 1800 nm

http://www.boeing.com/commercial/747fam ... _prod.html

[cmdrnmartin]

Well, that's great, provided you self-regulate.

But I think another factor should be included in aircraft, since right now, the 772LR and 773ER are underused, despite their obvious range advantage. The A335 and A332 as well...

I think a fair range issue that 'plausibly' simulates reality would be good. We allready calculate the ranges of flights (simplistically I will admit, but some simplicity is good) so I figure a max range figure for aircraft would be a good addition as well.

[Tomb]

they are under used because thier are no long thin routes since in flynet the pax availble is in propotion to the plane size and not the route size therefore it makes sense to fly the plane with the most seats

simple really, make passengers load proportianal to route size and not plane size, flying a B747 with 20 pax is not going to make you any money, doing it with a lear jet might.

however in Flynet flying a B747 on any route makes more sense since your pax load will be in the hundreds no matter what.
we fly planes that interest us since pax load is not a factor and with no overheadss we have far more "money" than we can spend or use

[cmdrnmartin]

Well, what I was thinking, it that since flynet already has an algorithm for calculating range between airports, is to add a new field to each aircraft, and put in the aircrafts max range. WHen you make a route, if the range required for the route is higher than that of an aircraft, the aircraft won't show up in the pull down menu.

Not sure how hard that would be to code, but thats my idea anyways.

[Dave Athay]

I noticed the "B74D" yesterday and I have a lot of problems with that aircraft. The gross weight is WAY too low. The numbers are all wrong in the database, so of course you're going to get ridiculous results from flights done with that aircraft.

I think the idea of keeping track of the range for a particular model of aircraft is a great idea, but I'd take it a step farther: Why not code in some kind of sanity check so if you get, for example, a leg on which ZERO fuel was burned (there are quite a few of them logged on here) it would throw up a flag.

It'd be pretty easy to run a rough sanity check, since the amount of fuel burned per mile is fairly consistently proportional to the weight of the aircraft and the speed at which it's traveling. I don't know anything about coding, but the math itself is pretty simple.

Or, just let it slide. Folks who cheat here really only cheat themselves. But it is kind of a shame when someone gets ridiculously good stats for their VA by cheating. Of course, it's also pretty obvious.

Personally, I'd rather see the efforts of this site's talented and selfless developers focused on enhancing their service and adding cool new features than trying to audit and sniff out cheaters.

[Konny]

hm, checking ranges and only allow aircrafts which can fly the distance would be very easy to implement. But are there really enough cases that this is worth the effort, I mean we would have to add all the range values for the aircrafts... and there still so many other ways to cheat, and all are very obvious. Wouldn't it be enough to just make it easier for the db-admins to warn/kick those people/vas.

Maybe like Dave said, check all the flights and flag those which are not within the calculated values.

[Tomb]

plus a blanket "range" would be inaccurate since thier are multiple factors here, not least the weather , i use real weather so use less fuel going east across the pond than going west and therefore have more range going east than west and sometimes that range increase can be significant

[CAPFlyer]

Konny, I think the DB Admin staff would be willing to go through and add range figures to all of the types in the database. It really doesn't take as long as one would think if you have several heads working on it. As far as need, I can count at least 20 instances in the last 3 months of operation where this was an issue, especially with several VAs flying aircraft like CRJs on trans-Atlantic (and in one case trans-Pacific) flights non-stop. If you can't assign the airplane to the route, then you greatly reduce the chances of you or us Admins having to step in and take action against those VAs.

Bob - You are right that range varies, but at the same time, I don't see any real-world airline operating a route that is outside of the stated range on the manufacturer's website for a flight with proper reserves at a given payload. The idea here is to simply say, if you had a lightly loaded airplane, how far could you go at the furthest? Once you have it established, simply don't allow the airplane to be assigned to any route whose distance is greater than that value. The idea isn't to prevent realistic flights, it's to prevent the wildy unrealistic ones that cause us Admins a lot of headaches to rectify.

[Tomb]

i dont see any website with any airline flying yorks or constelltions either, in those days flying for range WAS the adventure, you could never be quite sure what you would get, more or less,

fixed range=fixed fuel,. may as well tick the unlimted box and be done with it, since it will no longer be a relavent factor on a route,

nope a more accurate way and fairer would be to test MZFW against MTOW, plus MZFW-ZFW= actual fuel permited to be loaded, if its exceeded an overwieght warning is given and takeoff is not permitted., since at this the only varible is the fuel, you will have to defuel to make the wieght limit, and if you aint got enough fuel for the route, you need to reconsider using a different plane that does

so no flying B747D fulled loaded trans-atlantic. however an airline with a low rating and poor load factors would because it would be able to load more fuel since the differance between ZFW and MZFW would be greater.

those who are going to cheat using the fuel as in unlimted or zero fuel rates will do so regardless of method so why penalise the rest who do fly to the limit in a fair manner ?. flying the old planes you are OFTEN at the limit, thats what makes em fun

[CAPFlyer]

Well Bob, first if your not seeing VA's flying Yorks or Constellations, you're not looking very closely. CBFS VA (one of the largest VA's on this network) flies several Yorks.

As for the rest - I'm not going to argue with you over it. You have a preconceived notion of what is going to happen and how range works and it's totally inaccurate. I have a lot of experience with aviation in the real world, and airplanes have a finite range. It doesn't matter how much of a tailwind you get, you can only increase your range by so much (we're talking less than 10% here) and airlines CANNOT plan on that variance when they plan routes or else they'll be cancelling flights every day because there's not enough tailwind for them that day or too much headwind.

Spend some time in Airline Operations and doing route planning. Once you've done so, then we can talk. Until then, let those who have experience in the matter make the decisions.

[cmdrnmartin]

Politeness people, let's keep it civil.

[Tomb]

actually busy jet also fly constallations, yorks,argonaughts, DH89 etc, as an owner operator of my own aircraft for a long time i naturally know about fuel planning since unlike office wallahs, if it goes wrong i will be first at the scene of the ensuing accident, and the lower the performanace is the more critical the weather is,

no real life ailrines fly yorks or constalations so imposing some unrealistic limit of 10% is laughble, try flying one in FS in real weather, hell my range was cut in half, in fact its still parked at New York until i feel brave enough to fly it back to bristol, though the expected tailwing should add 50% to the range, but anyone who does fuel planning should know its endurance, not range that is planned for, sufficant for the journey, holds, diversion, taxi, etc etc though LCC's divert from this and calculate how much the fuel cost is at the destination v how much extra is used to carry the extra fuel.

for an LCC range is definitly not the issue

a lightly loaded B747D will have a range difference over 100% than a fully loaded one, makes a 10% look very silly

also early comets often diverted going west in strong winds (as did other types), crossing the pond was still an adventure.

i also have considerable aviation experiance and its not range that finite, it endurance but should know that and in the right hands even that can be stretched

[CAPFlyer]

Bob, we're working within the confines of FlyNET here that always loads to MZFW unless your rating is so abysmally low that it's not even funny. We're using the range figures for range at MTOW with defernce given to max fuel in the tanks and the rest taken up by pax and cargo. I seriously doubt that there will be many issues with the range figures we're using. Also, since it restricts the aircraft available for the route during creation & editing, most of the concerns people have are unfounded. As you said, you can stretch the fuel fairly easily, especially with favorable weather, so why complain when the system makes sure you don't go on routes that are so long that you push the envelope to the point you might have to divert because you're going to run out of fuel for stretching the limit too far?

Look, we're going around in circles. There was a need to reign in those who were pushing the envelope way to far. This is the best way to do so and so that's how we're doing it, as fairly as possible.

[flightsimer]

plus a blanket "range" would be inaccurate since thier are multiple factors here, not least the weather , i use real weather so use less fuel going east across the pond than going west and therefore have more range going east than west and sometimes that range increase can be significant

this all all i was trying to say in the a380 post that was locked...
and if I read this right so far, up to 10% can be added, i was 500nm over the range thats 320nm under the 10% margin.