flight plan additions

airvice

New member
activesky 2012 flightplan briefing

hello devs

i have noticed that the flight plan is now no longer selectable like it was in evolution. Now only a single line at a time can be selected and highlighted.
Being able to select the entire plan previously was a very usefull option for me as i could copy it and paste it in to an exel worksheet that i have made to calculate track distance taking in to account winds from activesky and fuel calcalations could then be accurately made.

Now in 2012 i can only select on line at a time this means its very tedious and time consuming to copy and paste each line individually in to the exel sheet.


please can you make the plan all selectable in one go in your next update or bug fix patch


also a nice feature would be for activesky to be able to calculate the difference to the track distance automatically from the plan and winds . This would be a very usefull feature im amazed its not already been implemented as all pilots need to know what the difference is to the track distance is taking acount winds aloft [EDIT: in order to work out the difference in duration and flight time to get fuel burn per hour figures. for accurate fuel calculations.]

thanks
k
 
Last edited:

Hook

Member
I'm surprised anyone would use pounds per mile rather than pounds per hour. That's a pretty involved calculation that will give you the same thing as total time multiplied by pounds per hour anyway.

Hook
 

airvice

New member
ah no im using the corrected track distance aftre winds are accounted for in order to give me the new flight duration / hours and then im calculating the fuel burn per hour as you say . so you need to be able to work out the extra miles in order to get the extra time .right : )? or how will you accurately know in advance how much extra time the flight will take. it will be a rough guess that way and not accurate enough if its based on average wind aloft


my exel sheet calculates the track distance adjustment precicely for each leg of the plan based on activesky wind direction and spd on each leg vs the ground speed/diection of the aircraft . it does this for each leg and gives a very accurate figure for track distance and flight duration addition or subtraction. Its way more accurate than just using an average wind for the entire flight because average wind is simply a figure derived from dividing the wind direction by the amount of legs which takes each leg as being an equal distance. but in reality those legs can be all different lengths.

cheers

k
 
Last edited:

Hook

Member
Its way more accurate than just using an average wind for the entire flight
The last column in the flight plan is ETE, Estimated Time Enroute. This is given for each leg, and is added up to give a total at the bottom.

You can calculate the climb and descent separately, but the time at cruise should be accurate. 240 minutes at 1000 pounds per hour is 4000 pounds.

Anyway, all your precise fuel calculations go out the window if you're put into a holding pattern for an hour at your destination. I fly GA planes, and I figure rough estimates for the time of flight based on gallons per hour, then add a 45 minute reserve. I don't get put into holding patterns. :)

Hook
 

airvice

New member
please could you integrate in to the plan a column for wind component for each leg (ie wind component for aircraft taking in to account aircrafts heading)

and also please could you add total additional track miles to the end of the plan taking in to account the wind componant for each leg. before and after wind componant figures in the brief would be very nice to be able to see.

the maths for both these calculations is not complex at all and would be a very useful feature to have for fuel calculations. All you would need to do is have a box somewhere on the briefing page for the user to input the aircrafts cruising speed. with that figure track miles after wind could be calculated. also it would be easy then to also add flight time duration in to the briefing.


All this extra data would be very handy for fuel calculations and it would be nice to be able to get it from the weather engine its self rather than have to try to work it all out seperately.

infact thinking about it activesky could actually have its own universal fuel calculator as say a seperate page that uses all this info from the plan as described above . It could work for any aircraft. all you would need is a box on this page where the user could input the aircrafts fuel burn per hour figure and you could get very nice accurate fuel figures for the flight plan. it could be as simple or as complex as you wanted it to be ie you could have drop down boxes for taxi time in and out even step climbs. at certain way points its all possible my exel sheet has all these options. so im sure they could be integrated in to the activesky fuel planner and flight plan its self.

thanks

k
 
Last edited:

damian

Developer
Staff member
We will look into the issue with not being entirely selectable.

I am not familiar with a "difference to the track distance". From my experience, fuel calculations are normally done based on fuel burn figures (i.e. GPH) from cruise performance information for the aircraft, compared with ETE, calculated for each leg. In real life you also calculate climbout fuel burn via charts such as "time, fuel and distance to climb". In AS you are getting accurate ETE information which is calculated from wind and TAS. In short I am not sure what you are suggesting here. Can you be more specific?
 

airvice

New member
sorry i did not explain it very clearly
ok what im suggesting is for the plan to be able to calculate the actual in air distance in addition to the ground distance. basically the distance the aircraft will have to fly through the air taking in to account winds aloft. for example if there is a strong head wind of 60 kts then if the flight is 10 hours each leg distance would be plus 60 nauticle miles x 10. and then by knowing the in air distance you could at a glance see how many additional miles the route would be say for a head wind or subtracted miles for a tail wind. and also with this data you could also get the corrected flight time/ duration and therefore be able to get an accurate fuel burn per hour figure.

so in this example if the distance on the earth of the route is geographically say 6500 miles. after the headwind is taken in to account then the actuall distance the aircraft would have to travell through the air(which is what counts as far as fuel burn is concerned because it takes longer) could be 6900 miles(approximate example). so 6900 miles divided by the airspeed would then give you your flight time. from which you could calculate your fuel consumption based on the arcraft performance tables as you say. those fule burn table generally need a flight time in hours to get a result from so this is just a very accurate way of getting those flight times. which will differ due to the head wind or tail wind factor in each leg.

there are various ways of implementing this feature and as simple or complex as you want to make it. for example you could have aircarft speed boxes for climb cruise and decent rather than just one general cruise speed. or step climb options to at various waypoints. ie a stepclim dop down menu at each waypoint in the flight plan that you could select and then re calculated or process the plan option in activesky which would then add in your step climbs in to the plan. hence taking the accurate wind/weather data from the correct cruise altitude at each part of the flight plan.




this is just a basic example obvoiusly im suggesting activesky being able to calculate each leg in this way based on the individual legs wind componant rather than a single average wind componant for the entire flight. and that would be easily possible by taking the info from the flight plan and having a box for the aircrafts cruise speed.

cheers

k
 
Last edited:

airvice

New member
The last column in the flight plan is ETE, Estimated Time Enroute. This is given for each leg, and is added up to give a total at the bottom.

You can calculate the climb and descent separately, but the time at cruise should be accurate. 240 minutes at 1000 pounds per hour is 4000 pounds.

Anyway, all your precise fuel calculations go out the window if you're put into a holding pattern for an hour at your destination. I fly GA planes, and I figure rough estimates for the time of flight based on gallons per hour, then add a 45 minute reserve. I don't get put into holding patterns. :)

Hook
as far as im aware the ete column does not take in to account the wind componant when it calculates the ete for each leg ? unless im mistaken here?

EDIT ok just checked and yes it appears ete column does calculate with the wind componant sorry


oh and regarding holding patterns that fuel would simply come out of the contingency fuel amount so its all still accounted for and within margins
 
Last edited:

damian

Developer
Staff member
Of course the ETE column takes into account the wind "component". It actually calculates the wind vectors, compares to your bearing and true airspeed, gives you a "heading to fly" based on the wind vectors as well as an accurate "ground speed". The distance divided by ground speed is your ETE. You now have winds aloft taken into account, placed in a navlog just like in real life in a normal flight plan navlog.

Not sure how you found this information not taking winds aloft into account?
 

airvice

New member
We will look into the issue with not being entirely selectable.

I am not familiar with a "difference to the track distance". From my experience, fuel calculations are normally done based on fuel burn figures (i.e. GPH) from cruise performance information for the aircraft, compared with ETE, calculated for each leg. In real life you also calculate climbout fuel burn via charts such as "time, fuel and distance to climb". In AS you are getting accurate ETE information which is calculated from wind and TAS. In short I am not sure what you are suggesting here. Can you be more specific?
thanks for looking in to the plan selection issue

k
 

airvice

New member
Of course the ETE column takes into account the wind "component". It actually calculates the wind vectors, compares to your bearing and true airspeed, gives you a "heading to fly" based on the wind vectors as well as an accurate "ground speed". The distance divided by ground speed is your ETE. You now have winds aloft taken into account, placed in a navlog just like in real life in a normal flight plan navlog.

Not sure how you found this information not taking winds aloft into account?
oh i did find this info using a vector calculation myself and comparing to bearing and airspeed just like activesky does as you describe (using radians). i just hadnot realised active sky did this in this way too my mistake

cheers
k
 
Top