Pirep and Maintenance

[Quantum]

Hi Konny,

I just thought I would post a few stats re maintenance on short haul .......................

30th April 1121hrs Fokker 100 Aircraft Lease for 4 days -v$ 5.0 millions
1st May 0023hrs After 8 flights with block time 10hrs 43mins act @97% (can't remember exact figure) engine failed and diversion - v$5.4 millions
1st May 0024hrs A-check to 'repair' - v$0.84 million
1st May 1541hrs Next revenue flight when acft available again at 100%
2nd May 2359hrs Aircraft status at 93.9% after only a further 16 flights and 19hrs 40mins block time

At this point I did not wish to risk further failures during subsequent flights and as the aircraft was back at the airport from where I leased it I decided to forego the rest of the lease period (should have ended 4th May 1121hrs) and perform maintenance to return it to 100% status.

3rd May 0020hrs B-check to return to 100% status -v$5.6 millions
Maintenance quote states aircraft is not available again until 0020hrs on 6th May.

So......................................

In 24 flights of approx 31 hours (block time I think, so flight time less) my costs incurred from maintenance and diverting due to technical trouble (double engine failure on a twinjet) have been -v$11.84 millions . In that time my Airline's reputation has increased to 96 and I have a personal flight rating of 98.4% due to 5 offences for not turning lights off above FL100, 2 fines for speeding below FL100 and one penalty for diverting safely with a double engine failure - I landed at wrong airfield ! No crashes!

Don't get me wrong, I have made a nice amount of money, but at this rate my aircraft will have to fly alternate days whilst it is on maintenance the other days. How does the maintenance pan out for the long haul guys? Can maintenance be done on hours flown then it is an even playing field for all?

Rgds

Q

[cmdrnmartin]

I'll let Konny handle the specifics on this, as you raise good points.

Short answer: Maintenance/Failure Engine is being reworked.

[Ionathan]

In the meanwhile, a good idea is to not allow an aircraft's maintenance status fall below 96% so you only need check A which is cheaper than check B and keeps the aircraft unavailable for only one day. During such periods, I used naother aircraft of the same type from my fleet. Since check A can be done at 96% and above I believe no failures should occur above say 95%.

[Konny]

Well, the new maintenance system actually should be a way to improve the flying experience with failures which should happen more often now. I noticed some people didn't even know that there exists a failure system afer having done more than 20 flights. The probability of a failure-free-flight is always the current status of the aircaft. But actually it could happen to any aircraft even if it's 100%, because the status is set down to 99.9% at the beginning of a flight.
And all the costs shouldn't be a problem I think. You make enough money with 20 flights to be able to pay a A-Check. And you can even stretch the number of flights with soft landings.
And if you don't always want to wait for 1 day before your aircraft becomes available again, I would suggest to purchase a second aircraft of that type and set your routes in a way that the aircraft always returns to the base after let's say 8 flights. Then you could do the A-Check every 16 flights.

[Ionathan]

I am not an expert in aviation but I think a real life aircraft is a maintenance status equivalent to what we mean 96%-97% in FlyNet would face a failure very rarely (much more rarely than inFlyNet). If often failures is something we want in FlyNet, it is another story. I just wanted to mention the difference. Personally, I have no serious arguements on the current frequency of failures as long as it is not changed to a more failure prone one. I would not want to fly like lottery.

[Konny]

Well, I think in reality the probability of a failure is about 0.00001%. Here on FlyNET it differs between 0.10% and 4.9% for a normal maintaned aircraft. I think that's ok, we want more failures, don't we ?

[Quantum]

Well, I think in reality the probability of a failure is about 0.00001%. Here on FlyNET it differs between 0.10% and 4.9% for a normal maintaned aircraft. I think that's ok, we want more failures, don't we ?

Well, as I am new here I suppose I would have to go with the flow but......................


Maintenance

I think maintenance should be done on a per hour flown basis. Having worked for two airlines in real life I seem to remember A-check/Check 1 or whatever you called it was performed every 50 flight hours. This was usually carried out overnight in @6-8 hours. At say 250 hours a B-check/Check 2 would be substituted for the A-check/Check 1 and would take a bit longer, say 24 hours. The aircraft would revert to A/B-checks/Checks 1/2 on the 50/250 hour cycle until it reached 500 hrs when the B-Check/Check 2 would be substituted by a C-Check/Check 3. C-Check/Check 3 would take a bit longer say 3 days. Every year you would have a D-Check/Check 4 which would take the aircraft out for a week. Airlines cannot afford to have aircraft standing idle in the hangars. I think that maintenance should be equal in terms of cost across the board even if you are late. Maintenance can be charged on a 'between checks' flight hour basis with an additional aircraft dependant flat rate surcharge for B, C and D checks.

So the schedule per 1000hrs would be A A A A B A A A A C A A A A B A A A A C

A-Checks at 50/100/150/200/300/350/400/450/550/600/650/700/800/850/900/950
B-Checks at 250/750
C-Checks at 500/1000

D-Checks by Calendar


Failures

If the client detects delayed maintenance, I think that is when the random failures should start to kick in. If you defer a Check beyond 50 hours then thats ok. By doing this though, players that WANT failures can just delay maintenance and wait for the action to start. Players who don't wish to see failures get thier aircraft maintained per schedule without risk of failures. You want to attract players of all ages and ability to FlyNet so I think you need to give them an option. Perhaps even give a tick box whether they wish to see random failures? I personally want to combine this programme with online ATC and failures could become an issue. If I maintain the aircraft I would not expect major failures and would not expect to have to divert.

Minor Defects

I like the idea of an alert box which tells of any defects on your aircraft. This could/should be done on the post flight report. Some defects can be carried forward to subsequent flights as 'deferred defects'. Airlines in RL have acceptable deferred defects which are allowed under certain circumstances to carried on subsequent flights. This stays as a history with the aircraft for subsequent pilots and they can check any defects before booking a flight. I presume FSUIPC would be able to transmit the defects to players aircraft? Another idea - if the client detects a hard landing then it could put in defects of 'blown tyres'. This could state how many tyres (aircraft dependant and 'how hard' dependant). Things like this should be fixed immediately and the client should 'force' the repair via the Financial flight log. If something like this is detected then there should be an automatic time out of say 1 hour (like the maintenance is now) to enable the tyres to be changed. If players have only one aircraft to use and they don't want to have a 'time-out' then they will treat the aircraft with the respect they deserve. This could be a factor of the touchdown vertical speed x % number of tyres fitted with a sliding scale. You could start blowing tyres at say -500 with the number of tyes blowing increasing as your landing vertical speed increases. You could also vary the 'time-out' depending on how many tyres get blown say 45 mins for one, 1 hour for two etc etc

He He good game

Rgds

Q

[Ionathan]

Well, I think in reality the probability of a failure is about 0.00001%. Here on FlyNET it differs between 0.10% and 4.9% for a normal maintaned aircraft. I think that's ok, we want more failures, don't we ?

Well, as I said, that's ok for me as long as it remains no more than this, I mean I would prefer less failures but I've no problem with the current system. An increased pilot's rating for the specific flights could be granted to the pilot who lands an aircraft with a failure.

[Quantum]

I spoke to a pal of mine tonight who operates a jet fleet and asked about maintenance. I was surprised at the answer.

BAe146 2000hrs or max 2years
B737-300 4000hrs or max 5years
B757-200 6000hrs or max 18months

These are for major checks of about a week duration. Between times they have checks every 100hrs, mostly taking just a few hours but midway between cycles can be down for max 3 days. Other than that any defects that occur are fixed on an ad-hoc basis. Every night they have a thorough 'walk around' like a pilots pre-flight. These days airplanes are built to fly and not spend time in the hangar. Fokker 70 and Fokker 100 intervals between maintenance times are also being extended due to good reliability.

Rgds

Q

[cmdrnmartin]

Well, I think in reality the probability of a failure is about 0.00001%. Here on FlyNET it differs between 0.10% and 4.9% for a normal maintaned aircraft. I think that's ok, we want more failures, don't we ?

Well, as I said, that's ok for me as long as it remains no more than this, I mean I would prefer less failures but I've no problem with the current system. An increased pilot's rating for the specific flights could be granted to the pilot who lands an aircraft with a failure.

Ok, but if theres a failure, and you HAVE to divert, why not disable the modifier on the money system and pilot rating? If anything, your rating for landing a malfuntioning aircraft should be higher, not the -15% we have now. As well, the money, how about make the net money for the flight 0$, instead of a pos or negative. In the end, it has the effect of the flight never occuring.

[recce]

As much as I agree with our Esteemed CEO of Wardair, there is one small bug I've noticed in his plan. The bug is that the flight has the effect of not existing.
You can't expect the customers to just soak up the cost of being stranded at an alternate. You also can't expect the fuel to be magically unburned. What you can expect however is that customers are compensated by a lower ticket price for that flight (possibly a percentage base here?). You could also expect that 90% of those customers will not choose to fly with the airline again due to a fear factor. Therefore the next flight you planned would have to be from that airport with 10% of the passengers. Or even a decreased ticked price with 50% of the passengers. Something that would allow you to repair the aircraft and return it to flight status with:

• A: a penalty for poor maintenance (as this can be expected to be the cause of the malfuntion)
  B: a pilot bonus/rating boost for dealing with an emergency effectively.

This I believe will satisfy both sides of the coin. The VA gets a little recoupe from what they've lost in terms of the flight, while losing a reasonable amount, the va reputation system would still function properly, the flight would "have occured", the fuel would still have been consumed (ie engine failure and pilot forgets to turn off the fuel....) and the pilot is not held responsible for poor VA management. Does this sound reasonable?

[Quantum]

Hi,

Just my suggestion

If the client programme detects a landing at the wrong airfield (be it weather or tech diversion) it should revert to a 'Booked - part flown' or 'pending' status with 24 hours to complete the flight. No costs attributed to the flight YET. When the pilot selects 'Fly Booked Flight' he has the option to refuel again if needed and then continue to his destination. Upon landing all costs are then applied. If the pilot fails to continue to his destination within the allotted time then normal penalties would apply. As a bonus, this would also allow for planned fuel stops.

Rgds

John

[BigQ]

But in real life, if such thing happens, the airline should be in a financial hole, plus loss of reputation for not bringing its passengers to the correct destination...

[CAPFlyer]

But in real life, if such thing happens, the airline should be in a financial hole, plus loss of reputation for not bringing its passengers to the correct destination...

Not totally true.

If you divert (and it's justified - meaning emergency or weather) then you don't loose as much money as you would just flat out landing at the wrong airport. As well, being that there are some things that you just can't control (weather) making the correct decision and diverting in the proper cases actually INCREASES the airline's reputation as they become known as a safe airline. If you divert for a controllable reason (meaning MX due to poorly maintained aircraft or poor fuel planning) then you do take a hit. But if you divert due to that unforseen MX failure (but your planes are well maintained) or weather forces it, then you shouldn't be heavily penalized as you are now.

[BigQ]

well then, should we have a slight lowering of reputation on a wx/non-mx diversion, a larger one for a random, well-maintained plane failure, and a huge one for badly maintained planes?