10 hour flight with an A320 KCRP to PHOG(Hawaii)

[HB-100]

I know you won't believe me when I tell you I just did a 10 hours(Airborntime) flight with an Airbus320!

But it's true:

http://www.fspassengers.com/?action=va&listflight=77298

some few pics:
http://img213.imageshack.us/img213/7305/...ic7ak8.jpg
http://img226.imageshack.us/img226/397/h...ic9jp8.jpg
http://img226.imageshack.us/img226/5836/...r10tm1.jpg
http://img226.imageshack.us/img226/6803/...r11jn5.jpg

I flew from KCRP (Texas, Corpus Christi) to PHOG (Hawaii), 3220Nm

As you maybe notice in the report I run out of fuel still in the air and had to land without engine at the end. I am surprised I made it,
because it's long since I last time tried a landing without engines. Well it was everything else then perfect, but who complains when there
is no one hurt. It could have ended far worse.

I got hugh penalty for causing the problem on my own fault.
Well that was to expect. I was surprised that I got close to Hawaii anyway.

I started the flight yesterday 1hour before I went to bed.
I need money (bad experience with short flights, suddently you lose a brand new aircraft), so I thought why not doing a long flight while
sleeping ?
The only problem (next to sudden FsP failures that can happen) is, that a long flight with an AirbusA320 is about 5 hours and not more
because the fuel does not hold for more.
So how to strech that? Right fly slower.

But there is a limit too. You need to fly high to spare fuel but you cant fly too well with less speed.

I climbed to FL320 and wanted to fly 180knts IAS, that were about 300knt GS. But that didnt work well.
So I was experimenting a half hour till I flew with the following:

FL300 210knt IAS

That seemd to be close to an minimal fuel consumption

The next morning,first surprise, the PC did not crash and also not burn off and what a luck the aircraft was still on FL300 with 210knt and
flew all the flightplan with autopilot and no FsP fault.

Great! So I checked everything and by then I knew it will be a very close thing.Calculation showed the fuel will be completly used up
shortly before I will be on my destination.

But from my earlier crazzy sim flights without FsPexperiences I knew the plane glides a nice distance without engines if you are only
high enough. Also the fuel display does not show the reserve in the middle tank. So it could be done. I decided to keep FL300 as long
as possible (stored energy).. When I was close enough to the destination, I started descending with about -2500feet/min. At 10'000
altitude my engines used up the last drop feul although they were running on idle during the descend.

But that was fine, because so I don't have to worry if I better should do a no engine approach or hope that the fuel will hold and then
maybe get bad surprised in the middle of the final!

But by 10'000 I was already 5nm close to the airport. I came in too high, ok better than too low , but that was bad that wasn't optimal
becuase I had to fly a close 360 . Lucky I managed to came out of the 360 perfectly aligned with the rwy and with just the right hight for a
final without engines.

And so I could dive in just right and land. Ok it was a hard landing, but at the right touchdown position of the rwy and so i had no problem
to stop the plane without haveing reverse thrusters.

I know I know completly maniac to even have started that flight, no serious pilot would just start a flight and see if he somehow can made
it to a destination out of range by luck.

But, see, thats why I like the simulator . You may risk the one or the other thing for fun. !

Unfortunatly my passangers didnt like it so much:: 71%
But maybe it's because I let them hungry for 9 hours!

HB-100

p.s. Honest that passangers were stupid. I would never have borded that flight!

[AeroJim]

hey i think that is aweosme, especially cuz you planned it out to have just enough fuel to make ur destination

[poden]

Good you made it all the way without going down at sea!

[aibiria]

hahahahahahahahahahaahah

CONGRATULATIONS MATE!!!

You are my kind. We both do the riskiest things ever with the simulator. hahahahaha

I love the story, by the way

[HB-100]

Thank's a lot.

Love to take some risk in the simulator. Would be too boring otherwhise.

Hmm let me think what would i do in real? Maybe you better don't let me ever on the stick of a real A320. Could be a fatal mistake!

[American Jet]

Lol, my CEO of American Virtual Airlines would kill me if he saw that I ran out of fuel in the air. He'd fire me and then warn every other
Virtual airline not to hire me. ROFL!!!

[Scotty_1991]

The next morning,first surprise, the PC did not crash and also not burn off and what a luck the aircraft was still on FL300 with
210knt and
flew all the flightplan with autopilot and no FsP fault.

You mention that you flew the flightplan on autopilot.

How?

Does it communicate with ATC, and turn for you or something?

Thanks

Scott

[highlander]

Scotty - some folks just don't bother talking to ATC... it's not a requirement, per se, in FS9. FsP doesn't detect that you've not talked to them.
This is a good thing, because it allows add-ons such as "Radar Contact" to work with FsP.

Sometimes, particularly when I'm just mucking about with a skid-equipped helicopter (rather than a wheeled one) I will forget ATC and just take off
from where I start. This is because taxiing is a pain in the behind in skid helos, and because even though you can hover-taxi, if you go slightly too
high, FS's ATC start moaning incessantly because "You were not cleared to take off." I'll then ring 'em up in flight and ask for flight following,
which they're quite happy to give you.

In short, you can do complete flights in FsP without talking to ATC at all.

[Scotty_1991]

Ph, thanks...but does it do the flight plan..sorry if i'm confused but it seems as if the airplane flew its self there?...

[HB-100]

I fly with the FS9 build in flightplan. And yes the autopilot follows that flightplane exactly when you have activated it on GPS.
-> You can switch between nav and gps

I take off with full fs9 ATC support and land with full fs9 ATC.

For the time in between there are two solutions:

The more troublesome:
1) just stop communicating. The flight plan will be closed somewhen but thats only the ATC chatter the autopilot keeps flying the
flightplane. When you are back, open the menu and recreate the exact same flightplan but then delete every nav point you already
passed. On the question to set the fplane at the takeoff airport say NO. Back in plane you will have a new option in the ATC windows, to
send a flightplan. You choose that and go through the clerances. After that you are fully on ATC again and can do the landing with ATC.

The easy solution:
2) Wait till you are on you are on your crusing hight or at least cleared for it. Then wait till ATC announces a hand over. Confirm the hand
over. And then do nothing anymore.
When you are back you stilll have the option to set the new ATC. You will notice it has switched to newr controll centers.
That's ok. Just select it and check in. Next a copple of curse correction commands will follow from the ATC. Just comfirm them but do
nothing. Wait for the one that says continue on your own navigation. Confirm that too and you are in again or more exactly you were never
out of ATC. with autopilot you should still be on the flight plan track and do noth have to do any correction.
Make sure you check in again at least 30 min before your FsP destination Endtime, but better 40min. (about 100nm) because the
descend orders starts then.

[Cactus757]

HB-100 YES! I always do the "easy solution" on long haul flights. This is the first time i have every heard someone else mention that
tecnique. cool

[Scotty_1991]

Hi again!

I think i'm just dumb...but I want to do a flight from KSFO to EGKK...dont know what in yet though!

So how exactly do I get the plane to follow the flight plan, in GPS, as i'm obviously a complee newbie to this all :p

Thanks a lot

[HB-100]

You need a nav/gps switch or a nav and a gps on your pannel. If you haven't such a thing on your pannel you need to add it in pannel.cfg

For example like that:

[Window00]
...
gauge44=737-400!Nav GPS Switch, 870, 525, 20
...

wheras 870 and 525 is the X/Y position in pixel and the 20 is somehow connected to the size,
the 44 you have to replace with the gauge counteing that you have on your pannel. (the last gauge listet +1)

1) cretae a flight plan with fs9 (fs9 forces you to you have to save it)
2) get clerance fo rthe flightplan from atc (hmm probabily works without that also)
3) once in the air, and cleared for own navigation..
switch on the autopilot (differs from pannel to pannel on mine it is the cmd button)
switch on the altitude hold button. (set the crusing altitude first, the altitude is fix)

and then it depends on your pannel. If you have added the sitch above which is just a toggle switch:
switch that switch to gps (i belive right) and switch on the nav button.

if you have a pannel with a nav and a gps button. just press the gps button.

alternative:
download the fs moving map or fs naviagtor. I am not sure which it was, used it in the past and for online fliying,
there you can programm an own fs9 independ flightplane usually even with sid and star (take off path and approach path)

when i am not wrong you then need to keep the autopilot on nav (not gps) and the fs navigator feeds the autopilot with the right data from
the fs navigator flightplan during the whole flight.
This is great for online flying but lesgreat when you want to have the fs9 atc because the fs9 atc guides/vectors you on the fs9 flightplane
by vector.






.

[Launchbury]

Had nearly the same thing happen to me. Went from SFO to Honolulu (HNL?) in a 737-400. It wasn't a 10-hour flight but the tanks were
near dry as I was on approach. I kept all the flaps and gear tucked in until the last half mile so I could run the engines on idle for as long
as possible (PPH at idle is 700 per engine on the 734 where standard landing configuration fuel flow is I think 7,000 PPH) then threw out
the flaps, gear and spoilers to slow the descent, opened the reversers when I was still 30 feet up and plunked down on the runway with
a "nice" rating, then the engines proptly flamed out. I was happy but my company was pretty pissed about it! -1500 points or something.

[HB-100]

hmm just see you also need to activate nav when the gps is a button.

That you get an idea, your autpilot setting should look like this:




whereas the red circled you need to activate for haveing the autopilot flying the flight plan course:

The autopilot main switch/button: AP1 (Cmd on some pannel) + the nav switch/button : NAV + the GPS switch/button

also recommended the yellow circled:
The Alt button/switch to hold the altitude (30'000 feet in my case)

and the blue cicrled:
ATHR (auto thrust, ignore if you dont have that) + SPD (hold the speed, 300knt indicated airspeed in my case)

hope that helps you a little.
(sorry for not answering a week, was in vacance)


p.s. byway always keep both 'hold speed' buttons ATHR and SPD at the same status, both on or both off, otherwhise the thrusters start to
behave somewhat strange. Tried to figure out the logic about them, but my pannel behaves somehow not logic reproducible depending
on the order i aktivate and deactive them. don't get that. one simple button instead two (my old pannel) is more than enough for me. Don't
really see why it requires two. Anywone?



Post Edited ( 10-19-06 20:31 )