Departure and arrival times

[DavidK]

Hi.

Apologies if the following seems naive -- it's been a long time since I was a passenger on board an airliner in the real world.

At what moment is a flight deemed to have started and ended? I've taken takeoff clearance for the former and coming to halt (triggering the FSA "On block" message) once I've landed and am clear of the runway, but I suspect it should be "As soon as you start moving (away from the gate/parking spot)" and "Once you come to a halt at a gate/parking spot (and engines powered down?)". I'm all for increasing realism -- see here -- so would appreciate a reminder.

Thanks,
DavidK

[CAPFlyer]

In the real world, there are several "departures" and "arrivals".

Departures:
1) Scheduled Departure (mainly for passengers, but is generally set for when the plane is supposed to close the door)
2) Gate Departure (when the door is closed and the jetway or airstairs are removed from the airplane)
3) Off Blocks (when the airplane is connected to the pushback tug or the chocks are removed)
4) Departure (when the airplane leaves the ground)

Arrivals:
1) Arrival (when the plane actually touches down and speed reduces below 60 knots)
2) On Blocks (when the chocks are installed and the engines shutdown)
3) Gate Arrival (when the door is opened and the jetway or airstairs are moved up to the plane)
4) Scheduled Arrival (when the plane is supposed to open the door at the gate)

For the airline, the important times going out are Gate Departure (when they show in their planning software that the plane is departing) and Departure (when the plane actually gets into the air. With the first, that's when any airline delays are assessed, with the second, that's when any ATC delays are assessed. Coming in, the important times are Arrival (again, enroute and ATC delays are assessed) and Gate Arrival (ATC/airline ground delays assessed). One important note - Gate Arrival can occur even if the passengers are not allowed to leave the airplane. In case of foul weather (mainly lightning), the aircraft can be parked, the doors "opened" (disarmed) and the plane shown as "arrived" but the passengers not allowed to leave the plane until the weather improves. For pilots, the Off Blocks and On Blocks times are what they record for their flight hours. Any time outside of that is recorded as "on duty" but not as "flying".

This goes a bit more in depth than what passengers and most crew need to be aware of, but it's a good snapshot of the things the airlines have to track and be aware of for every flight that occurs.

However, for the purpose of FSAirlines, I doubt that we'll see much more comprehensive as our purpose here has always been "relaxed reality". We want some rules and regulations so that people aren't just doing whatever they want, but we don't want it so overwhelming that it's like FSPassengers or other competing networks when it comes to complexity of operation.

[DavidK]

Thanks for your comprehensive response, CAPFlyer -- much appreciated. For the sake of consistency, I guess I'll stick with my current interpretation, as it seems to match the "Departure" and "Arrival" descriptions you give and the FSA reports refer to "Departure"s and "Arrival"s rather than "Scheduled departure"s and "Scheduled arrival"s. (I also suppose FSA's "On block" message should only appear when the engines are shutdown, so when the aircraft is in an appropriate place to do so.)

I guess there's "relaxed reality" and then there's "relaxed reality". Maybe FSA could offer monitoring to different levels of simulated reality. "FSPassengers" sounds intriguing -- I'll look into that -- but, yes, I don't want so many requirements that the experience becomes less than enjoyable.

I'm a little disappointed (and a bit surprised) that no-one -- especially no-one involved in running FSA -- seems to've felt able to respond to the post in the "New features & ideas" forum linked above. Perhaps I'm being impatient.

Thanks again,
DavidK

PS I thought I'd look at what departure times were listed in the FSX logbook and see that they're presumably "Off block" times, i.e. once the plane starts moving away from the gate or parking spot.

[CAPFlyer]

We don't always respond to stuff in that thread. It doesn't mean we didn't read it and consider it though, it's just that we don't always need to respond to everything.