Why has my flight been marked 'Cheat' or 'Review'?

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Quantum
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Why has my flight been marked 'Cheat' or 'Review'?

Post by Quantum » Sun Apr 26, 2009 7:38 pm

Hi,

This post is here so that we can direct pilots to it when they complain that they have had a flight flagged as 'cheat' and subsequently reviewed and confirmed as 'cheat'. It is also of benefit to other pilots to know how flights are detected by the system and automatically flagged for review.

Possible reasons why your flight has been marked as cheat :-

1. Incorrect block fuel.
2. Incorrect flight time.
3. Possible duplicate flight.

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1. Incorrect block fuel.

On flight reports you will see :-

A)Initial Fuel = Fuel left on the aircraft from previous flight
B)Fuel bought = The difference between A and C (calculated)
C)Departure fuel = The fuel you have requested via client refuelling (calculated)
D)Take-off fuel = Actual fuel amount on your aircraft obtained by client using FSUIPC/Simconnect
E)Landing fuel = Actual fuel amount on your aircraft obtained by client using FSUIPC/Simconnect
F)End flight fuel = Actual fuel amount on your aircraft obtained by client using FSUIPC/Simconnect
G)Block fuel = The difference between C and F

If your sim/aircraft bypasses the client refuelling at the start of a flight it can show a greater amount at take-off. This means that either the aircraft model has an unusual tank configuration which the client cannot deal with (SEE HERE ), a pilot has stopped his aircraft adjacent to a refuellling point after the client has refuelled or he has added fuel via the sim menu.

If you get a sim message 'Your selected fuel tanks are gettting low select ctrl + X to refuel now' the simple answer is DON'T as this will add fuel to your tanks and the resultant block fuel will be incorrect.

Upon landing, ensure you do not stop your aircraft adjacent to a refuelling point as this will cause your aircraft to be refuelled and will result in incorrect block fuel being used.

Do not slew or use the sim menu to 'magic' you to your destination. Your flight time and block fuel will be incorrect for the distance and we can tell.

DO ensure your aircraft is using the correct amount of fuel for the aircraft type you are using. If your aircraft uses too little fuel for the type/distance flown this will also flag your flight for review.

After landing DO NOT watch an action replay of your landing until AFTER you have ended the flight in the client.

If you are running additonal software in parallel with the client (FSPassengers etc) remember that the client is intended as a standalone utility and is not tested for compatability with other programmes so it is user beware. For the best possible chance of the client working in unison with any other third party programs I would recommend starting the client last and ending the client first to ensure that the opening/closing of other utilities do not interfere with the client actions. Use the non-simple mode for refuelling and just use the amounts shown as a comparison and do not attempt to alter the fuel amounts the client has read.

USE THE CLIENT 'FLYING' WINDOW AS AN EXTRA FUEL GAUGE. This might seem an obvious thing to do but there are many users that don't. When you have refuelled via the client and clicked the FLY button then go look at the client and check the fuel amount is correct. If it isn't then close the client and find out where you've gone wrong. To continue the flight when you know the client hasn't confirmed your correct departure fuel is foolhardy and will result in the flight being flagged as cheat. Monitor the fuel in the client window during your flight /after landing/when ending flight. Again if there is a discrepancy from what you would expect then close the client and start the flight again or the flight may get flagged as 'cheat'.

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2. Incorrect flight time

Once you have started the client DON'T adjust your time in the sim to match your departure time. Doing so will screw up the time logging. If you need to change the time in the sim after you've started the client then close the client and restart it. Make starting the client one of your last pre-flight check-list items after you are ready to start engines.

Sometimes when crossing time zones an incorrect time, usually negative hours, can result. If your flight has been flagged for review and you can see that the fuel is correct but the time is incorrect, do not worry, we will adjust the time accordingly without the flight getting markled cheat.

If you have a short flight time and a correspondingly lower block fuel we may assume that you have slewed/use the sim menu to 'jump' to your destination and the flight will almost certainly be marked as a cheat flight.

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3. Possible duplicate flight.

Very occasionally a flight will duplicate itself on the website when uploading. We will just delete the duplicate.

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If you have had a flight flagged for review CHECK it yourself first so that you can identify why. The answer is there plain to see just as we can see it when we perform the review. Some users are quite happy to end a flight with full tanks and then operate a couple of flights using the free fuel with corresponding higher revenues due to decreased fuel costs and then complain when the flight gets reviewed and they lose the revenue.

When a flight is reviewed and confirmed as cheat (unfair advantage) the block fuel is adjusted and an additional fuel amount is charged to the flight and is added to the flight expenditure. Passenger/cargo revenue is removed. Additional fuel gained unfairly can be removed.

A client/refuelling walkthrough tutorial can be found HERE

There is only a very very small percentage of flights (@ 1%) that get marked as cheat so before you complain that you did nothing wrong and the client must be wrong, remember that 99% of flights/pilots have no problems.

Happy flying.

Regards

John
CEO - Classic British Flight Services
Classic aircraft on Classic routes
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Skids
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Re: Why has my flight been marked 'Cheat' or 'Review'?

Post by Skids » Wed Dec 30, 2015 3:24 am

Good morning /afternoon all,

I have been searching the posts and forums for an answer to my question but with no luck. Please forgive me if this has been answered elsewhere but I can not find it.

I am using FS Passengers with FSAirlines and have the following problem.

With the default FSX 737 800 aircraft I flew from YPAD Adelaide Australia to YPPH Perth Australia. A major route with our commercial airlines in the 737 800 aircraft amongst others. I filled up the aircraft with 100% full tanks and flew the flight. On arrival, FS Passengers gave me a penalty for insufficient reserve fuel with only about 6% remaining. The weather was real world from REX Weather and there were no excessively strong headwinds out of what was or could have been expected. In other words, the weather was normal throughout the flight.

Reading through FS Passengers forums I see that the fuel usage settings are incorrect in the default aircraft of FSX and suggestions are made to edit the fuel scalar entries in the config files to a setting that is more realistic to real world aircraft. As a side note, the same aircraft is used in real world from YBBN Brisbane to YPPH Perth, both in Australia, but much longer distances in the same direction.

I have changed my config entries to those suggested in FS Passengers forums but see that my actual usage is now very much less.

I do NOT wish to "cheat" in any way with any flight in FS Airlines at any time but without finding an acceptable setting that is regarded fair by FS Airlines as a true and just usage I am probably running less that I should be. It has given me negative income for excess fuel purchased and not used.

The question of course is what settings should be used for this?

I do not wish to keep changing the scalar or other settings randomly to try and find the best and honest fuel usage as this to me seems as I am trying to cheat.

Nothing personal but I hope for a reply or direction in this area in the near future please.

Thanks guys

Paul S

Bigdog2995
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Re: Why has my flight been marked 'Cheat' or 'Review'?

Post by Bigdog2995 » Wed Nov 23, 2016 7:45 am

Hi Paul,
I try not to change the fuel scalar at all for this reason and the FSA client is set to read your fuel usage and quantities.
Because real world weather can be a large factor on your fuel usage combined with how much weight every pax will carry on FSA and the airspeed at different altitudes, you may never get a honey zone on the config files to work while running two separate tracking software programs.
My only suggestion would to try and find the honey zone for your aircraft to cruse at a reasonable speed at the perfect altitude to reduce drag and therefore increase fuel efficiency, this may not be within normal operating parameters but would be used in the real world too.
Only other option I could see in this case would be to fudge the weather just a little to make both software programs play nice together.
I'm not sure how FSP converts airspeed and weight into fuel usage so you may just be the pioneer that can find out and let everyone know how to overcome these issues.
Best of luck mate and let us know what you find out.

cptarianus
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Re: Why has my flight been marked 'Cheat' or 'Review'?

Post by cptarianus » Wed Jan 22, 2020 1:45 am

Hello, my flight was flagged for review.
Flight is:: https://www.fsairlines.net/crewcenter/i ... id=2667322
Fuel within time compression did go quite wild. Expected touchdown was 0.9, real 11.5
Can you correct plane fuel standing? Wind plus minus did not make that difference in expection so real would be somewhere between 0.7 to 1.1 touchdown fuel, more probably the lower count.

So, speeding through ground speed compression is not the way, as did make plane quicker, but fuel was not spend nor sim time reflects the compression. The right one should be sim speed acceleration, do anyone have an experience in XPLANE?
[img]https://i.imgur.com/xnIAJNZ.png[/img]

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joefremont
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Re: Why has my flight been marked 'Cheat' or 'Review'?

Post by joefremont » Wed Jan 22, 2020 5:42 pm

cptarianus wrote:
Wed Jan 22, 2020 1:45 am
Hello, my flight was flagged for review.
Flight is:: https://www.fsairlines.net/crewcenter/i ... id=2667322
Fuel within time compression did go quite wild. Expected touchdown was 0.9, real 11.5
Can you correct plane fuel standing? Wind plus minus did not make that difference in expection so real would be somewhere between 0.7 to 1.1 touchdown fuel, more probably the lower count.

So, speeding through ground speed compression is not the way, as did make plane quicker, but fuel was not spend nor sim time reflects the compression. The right one should be sim speed acceleration, do anyone have an experience in XPLANE?
Image
The problem is fuel usage, based on flights by other pilots and the manufactures specs it should have used 18190 kg of fuel +11093 kg more than it did. X-Plane aircraft are notorious for not using the correct amount of fuel.
Image
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