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Update W&B data & fuel on multi stop plan


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FlorianK
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Hi,

when planing a trip with a stop by using the “land here” functionality in the planning mode, fuel and weights for the second flight are reset to the default values of the plane. I would be very helpful if the passenger & cargo weights would be transferred from the first flight (as most of the times we continue flight with the same load). Also it would be helpful if the fuel would be set to the expected fuel at that stop (fuel of previous flight minus the minimum fuel for previous flight except reserves). Of course we need to check fuel levels before the second flight and enter the correct value before we start, and yes, but when planning a trip to an airfield where no fuel is available it would be very helpful if we could directly see whether or not we can expect to have enough fuel for the return flight. And when entering the expected takeoff time, the default shouldn’t be now but instead the calculated landing time of the first flight.

Best regards
Florian
Tim Dawson
Tim Dawson
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I can see the merit in a convenience feature that allowed the user to copy the pilot and passenger weights over to the next flight.

I'd be a little more concerned about assuming anything about the takeoff time or fuel state, though. The amount of fuel left at the end of the flight can only ever be estimated by SkyDemon, after all. We would hate for any cumulative error to creep in, or for the pilot to forget to update this stuff manually because we had made some assumptions for her.

FlorianK
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I've thought about that as well... one way to mitigate the risk would be to add a warning to the warning list as long as the calculated takeoff times and fuel amounts haven't been manually updated.
Another even more flexible option would be to just copy the weights and add a small button to calculate the takeoff time and fuel amount, maybe even with a mini dialogue:
+--------------------------------------------------------+
| Calculated takeoff time from previous flight:  
| [ ] Takeoff + Flight time + [ xxx ] Minutes 
|      [ ] round to the next [ 5 / 10 / 15 / 30 ] Minutes
|
| Calculated remaining fuel from previous flight:
| [  ] Use default fuel
| [  ] Use last fuel - required fuel including reserves
| [  ] Use last fuel - required fuel with half reserves
| [  ] Use last fuel - required fuel without reserves
+-----------------------------------------------------------------

Tim Dawson
Tim Dawson
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I will be interested to hear what others have to say on this idea.
jfw
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Hello,

I think this would make sense, but I do also think it could be interesting to a have all information of the different legs grouped in a way or another to check your preparation (eg. if you do not plan to refuel at intermediate stop starting fuel of leg 2 is arrival fuel of leg 1, the coherence between the expected arrival time of leg 1 vs expected departure time of leg 2, ...).
For the expected fuell usage I would choose taxi+trip+contigency.

I also refer to my post on this here; http://forums.skydemon.aero/FindPost31634.aspx


Prokop
Prokop
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Hello,
for me, this makes sense at least for the part where planning is concerned. Even at the first leg, the plan brought from home needs to be cross verified with the real world on the apron and in case of differences the plan needs to be updated or the real world refueled. PICs checking their past flights and comparing their fuel remaining can raise or lower their contingency percentage to adapt to their actual values.

I like the approach from FlorianK where for every "land here" event the options of estimated takeoff time and estimated remaining fuel are defined. However, i see some Challenges in solving that request:
- Should this be a one time calculation when "land here" is pressed and the next leg is created? The values are set but not re-calculated if leg 1 has been updated afterwards. Danger of having calculated values not being accurate anymore (e.g. by prolonging the first leg)
- Should the calculation be linked and continuously recalculated and prohibit a change in values unless the link between previous leg and next leg is deactivated? I guess that needs a significant redesing of the data model on SD-side if they concider the individual legs as individual flights.



pilot-byom
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I believe this is not a good idea. Yes, it may be a convenience thing, but it tricklulls pilots into relying on a sole simulation of flight. I prefer to treat each leg on its own with separate flight planning - i.e adding a personal motivated additional fuel quantity for uncertainty of stops. How could you include this without attracting the feature creep?
grahamb
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pilot-byom - 10/3/2020 10:39:41 AM
I believe this is not a good idea. Yes, it may be a convenience thing, but it tricklulls pilots into relying on a sole simulation of flight. I prefer to treat each leg on its own with separate flight planning - i.e adding a personal motivated additional fuel quantity for uncertainty of stops. How could you include this without attracting the feature creep?

I agree.

Even when I plan a multi-leg trip as one big route with 'land-heres' included (which I generally don't do, but can be useful in helping to see the bigger picture on a really long trip), I treat each leg as its own flight and want to enter my estimated times and fuel requirements manually. 

I don't want unecessary complexity introduced into the product for the sake of having something that tries to model uncertainty too closely.

Edited 10/3/2020 12:23:36 PM by grahamb
GO

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