Arrival times

[Wisborg]

Hi,

If I remember correctly, you get a penatly if you arrive either too much earlier or later than scheduled since the passengers don't like that. I was
considering a bit whether that would be optimal to have it that way? Of course passengers get annoyed if the flight is delayed, but at least
personally I don't get annoyed at all, if I arrive early.

So basically my question is whether the passenger score is the one hit, if you arrive early?

On the other hand it would be quite understandable that you get a penalty on the pilot skill account, if you have arrived early because you have spend
too much fuel.

/ Jesper

[DanSteph]

there is two reason to penalise if you arrive too early...

reality:

peoples have perhaps others aircraft to take, bus , car, friends that wait them at arrival airport,
hostel reservation that start only at a certain time etc. etc. On the company side you have peoples
on ground that wait for your aircraft.
So I don't think in general that peoples will be SO pleased to be announced to arrive at say 15:00 GMT
and finally arrive at 14:00 GMT... no friend. no bus, perhaps rainy day etc etc...
Of course we can discuss this matter , personnaly I will not be annoyed of course but I will
at least wonder who is the that have printed the arrival time on my ticket... doesn't look serious.

gameplay: (the main reason)

If I don't penalise, and you know that you will arrive around say 15:00 GMT
you just need to put 19:00 GMT planned arrival time and your ok...
bonus for arrival in time or at least no penality for arrival too late...

FsP is not intended to simulate 100% of the reality but he is intented to give you a feeling of reality....

In Fs2004 you don't have any feeling of urgency or concern about your life or passengers,
you crash ? bah ... that's bad but hey we didn't lost anything.

with FsP when you set an arrival time , you start to feel your in a hurry, you watch the time on the mini display
and ... you start to make dumb things to arrive in time as exceeding speed, forgeting one important things,
taking route shortcut and THIS is realist...
Accident record show that the time was responsible of a lot of accident.... pilots didn't resist to stress,
bypassed somes procedure and ran into problems....

In Fs2004 after two hours of flight sometime I make a mistake and arrive really too high on ILS...
as much people I just open flaps gear spoiler and dive like a mad until landing... Ok, flight completed...
"hey , I'm the best I landed this bird as planned" ... as planned ? with a descent rate of 6000 fpm ?

With FsP, no way, you have to stay calm and follow procedure. You are responsible of peoples live,
and they are behind you ready to notice every mistake, you have also perhaps a swatch on your
panel that could say every second "your late, your late, your late your late"

Can you resist and stay professionnal ?

Dan



Post Edited ( 05-30-05 20:23 )

[StephanP]

Good Point well made

Steph :Stupid:

[georak]

I would never say I am a pro, but it was amaizing when recenty I started calculating gate-to-gate flight time, most of the ocassions I
managed to acomplish in 1-5 minute differences. AND I didnt take weather into consideration, only the prediction of departure and landing
directions based on the wind reports. That means If I did it the absolute correct way, I might even be more precise.

So I only worry about the IFR aproaches, where ATC can direct me quite differently to the runway, than my predictions, because then arrival
time can vary significantly. Am I correct when saying these?

[DanSteph]

georak wrote:
So I only worry about the IFR aproaches, where ATC can direct me quite differently to the runway, than my predictions, because then
arrival
time can vary significantly. Am I correct when saying these?

There is a range of time in FsP that depend of the duration of your flight
within this range you are "on time" and get bonus and outside another longer range your "out time"
and you are penalised....

I don't recall yet but I think it's 10mn for one hours flight .... (so you have a 20mn range)
and 40mn for 3 hours...

So you will not get penality for arriving 30mn late on a 7 hours flight

anyway if ATC make you turn like a mad during 40mn, that's life...
notice you are not forced to enter arrival time, if you don't no check are performed

Dan



Post Edited ( 05-30-05 20:24 )

[Wisborg]

DanSteph wrote:
There is a range of time in FsP that depend of the duration of your flight
within this range you are "on time" and get bonus and outside another longer range your "out time"
and you are penalised....

I don't recall yet but I think it's 10mn for one hours flight .... (so you have a 20mn range)
and 40mn for 3 hours...

So you will not get penality for arriving 30mn late on a 7 hours flight

anyway if ATC make you turn like a made during 40mn, that's life...
notice you are not forced to enter arrival time, if you don't no check are performed

Great, when the restrictions aren't worse than that, then it's no problem. I was mostly considering that on intercontinental flights, the actual
flying time can be fluctuating quite a lot depending on the weather, e.g. on a round trip (real life) between Amsterdam and Mexico City the departures
was for different reasons delayed around an hour, but for both flights we arrived on time (or even earlier) because the wind behaved very nicely.

Of course one can start slowing down below normal cruise speed, but I doubt very many will do that, which was the reason for my initial post.

/ Jesper

[georak]

Seems managable...

Thanks Dan

[firebug]

What I would like to know it at what point in arriving at the destination the time is checked for determing whether you're on time or not. Is it when
you hit the runway? Or when the passengers are all unboarded? I dont seem to find the way, because even though I unloaded all passengers at the
precise time I gave up, I dont get the bonus...

[DanSteph]

when you set the parking brake... at the end of flight

Dan

[firebug]

Hmmm.. then I think its not working 100%, because I have made about 6 flights with arrivaltime set, and all of them were on time (within the 6 minutes
of time set) and I got the bonus only one time... :|

[SWAFO]

I'm pretty sure it's when you set the parking brake at the arrival airport, and the FA announces that we're at our destination. Not sure
though.

[firebug]

I just ended my flight EHEH-EGBB arrival time set at 6:21, I set the parking brake at 6:21 at destination airport.. I dont have a FA to announce coz
Im flying GA at the moment.. This time I got the bonus.. I will keep an eye on it, coz Im definitly sure the previous flight were as good...

[Tord Hoppe]

@ Jesper: "Of course one can start slowing down below normal cruise speed, but I doubt very many will do that, which was the reason for my initial post."

Hmm, this actually raises an interesting real world question. For most airlines I can imagine that the timetable is very tight with for instance new
crews to an airframe that has just landed. I´d imagine that any early arrivals actually would generate cost and/or problems. For instance, what´s to
say that there are available stands on the airport if you arrive too early? The airframe would just stand still and not generate revenue while waiting
for the next scheduled departure.
If a long flight would encounter unexpected tailwinds and "risk" being early at the destination I wouldn´t be too surprised if the company dispatch
center orders a slower speed to meet the schedule. That would mean less fuel used = increased profit for the company. The company has nothing to gain
by an early arrival and while some pax will be happy, others will just have that more time to wait for extensions and such as has been mentioned before.
Just guessing though...

[jboweruk]

They are very tight, take a look at Airsource who's flights use real world schedules for the airlines and you will find it's really hard to arrive
early. Late.. yes, early ? very little chance, especially the shorter ones.

[Big Vern]

As an aside, on our return flight from Calgary to Heathrow last Thur/Fri, we touched down at Heathrow about 25' early, but were then kept
waiting in the taxi holding area for the gate to be available. The outgoing flight was a bit late I think, but illustrates how tight things are in
the RW, presumably there was no alternate gate either.

That was actually more frustrating than the usual ATC delays you get at Heathrow, circling the stack a dozen times. So near yet so far and
you can't just open the door and get off like a taxi in a traffic jam!