fuel restrictions

[carthorse]

Ability to set whether or not airline can purchase fuel at destination airport...

Some airports in real life don't have fuel available. Is there a way to cause pilots to have to plan fuel for multiple stops?

If so, how would stranded aircraft (no fuel) be refuled? Could fuel be avilable at price that would pay for transportation of fuel to that location?

[joefremont]

Ideally you should be able to distinguish between airports that have either jet fuel, av gas, both or none and which type of fuel the aircraft needs. The flight sim airline database has this information in it and type of fuel needed by the aircraft is in its aircraft.cfg file. Although I don't know if the client is able to extract that using FSUIPC.

One down side might be for airlines flying classic aircraft that need av gas where that fuel is not available there currently but it was available in the past.

Personally I think this is more complexity that we need. Even if fuel is not officially available, there is always some way to get it as long as you have the time and funds. Just make the price of gas really high.

[cmdrnmartin]

Ummm, why bother?

If you want to simulate their being no fuel, don't add any when you start up the client. The client knows how much fuel used to be in the aircraft, so the default number you see is what was left over from your last flight. Just click 'fuel plane', and it is effectively as if you didn't fuel her up at that airport.

[carthorse]

problem is as follows:

I flew a cessna 172 that burns 8 gal per hour 5nm from PANC to PAMR. I had loaded it with 40 gallons. When i landed, 10 min later, i only had 20 gallons left in the tank.

So if i don't want to lose money on fuel, i have to only put the minimum fuel in each time i make a flight.

Has anyone else had this problem?

[anz102]

I personally don't think it is a good idea. In fact, FSeconomy introduced this sort of thing, and it drove me nuts so I left.
The problem is it's all well and good for grass paddocks in Alaska to assume they have no fuel, but how do you decide what airport does or doesn't have fuel? It ends up being "small fields of some kind" and that general rule of thumb ruins other airports in the world that do have fuel. For example my home of New Zealand with many small airports. They are far apart so "most" have fuel as you can't just fly 5nm to the next airport with fuel. But a system like this would paint all the fields of a certain size to 'not have fuel'.

Also, this is my hobby, not my real life career. I don't always have time to fly from KAAA to KCCC to refuel before flying back to KAAA to start the flight I WANTED to do in the first place to KBBB. It works fine yes for the C172 pilot in Alaska or USA, with a million airports within short distances, but other areas of the world airports become more sparse.

Then the developers end up spending far too much time changing airports to have fuel, or not have fuel, or someone gets stuck and needs fuel added to the airport they are at etc. I'd prefer the systems flynet has already work 100% before introducing this one.

So no disrespect for floating the idea, but personally I hope this one doesn't get off the ground
Kind regards from NZ.

Alister

[cmdrnmartin]

problem is as follows:
I flew a cessna 172 that burns 8 gal per hour 5nm from PANC to PAMR. I had loaded it with 40 gallons. When i landed, 10 min later, i only had 20 gallons left in the tank.
So if i don't want to lose money on fuel, i have to only put the minimum fuel in each time i make a flight.
Has anyone else had this problem?

I don't follow...

Now I fly Heavier Iron (F50 is the lightest I operate) so on my heavies, I put the required fuel, because excess fuel can put me over my MLW, and snapping the gear is frowned on at most major airports.

However, in the F50, especially my CYVR CYYJ run, I only refuel in CYYJ, (because its cheaper). Unless I make a mistake. Case in point, I put 2000lbs in the tanks, fly the flight, and land. Check the fuel, only have 500 left, not enough for the return jouney. So I load the client, and it says '500lbs' I delete that entry and put 2000lbs. FLy my flight.
I will be charged for:
CYYJ: 2000lbs of fuel
CYVR: 1500lbs of fuel.

If you have 50lbs of fuel on the plane, and you enter 51lbs in the client, you will not be charged for 51 lbs, only 1 lb.

Again, I didn't understand your example, and I've tried to clarify mine more, to explain how fuel is handled by the client. Personally I don't see the point in having some airports with no fuel, since you can sim that yourself.

[flugkapitan]

Just to make sure I understand this fueling thing correctly.

If when ready to fly a booked flight, I start up FlyNet and click on "fly booked flight". For the sake of argument, let's say the screen indicates 2000lbs fuel. If I wish to take off with 10,000lbs for the flight, I load 8000lbs, not 10,000lbs?

Regards,
Scott
KJMS (or thereabouts)

[joefremont]

You enter the amount you need.

Here how it works, after the previous flight there was 2000lbs on the aircraft, you need 10000lbs for your flight.

The client indicates 2000lbs,
you change it 10000lbs,
You are charged for 8000lbs.

[flugkapitan]

Thanks for the info! I kind of thought that was the way it worked, but just wanted to make sure.

Regards,
Scott
KJMS (or thereabouts)

[Quantum]

problem is as follows:

I flew a cessna 172 that burns 8 gal per hour 5nm from PANC to PAMR. I had loaded it with 40 gallons. When i landed, 10 min later, i only had 20 gallons left in the tank.
So if i don't want to lose money on fuel, i have to only put the minimum fuel in each time i make a flight.

Has anyone else had this problem?

Methinks you had lbs selected in the client? The client only accepts fuel loadings in lbs or kgs, so to load 40 gallons you would have had to convert that to lbs or kgs. Another thing that may catch you out is 'pause on task switch' when you minimise FS to refuel with the client. If your game is on pause whilst FlyNET is refuelling you - it can't! FS must be in an 'unpaused' state for refuel to happen. FlyNET will send the command and assume the job has been done and you will be charged with the fuel even though your aircraft hasn't taken any extra fuel onboard. Just uncheck 'Pause on task switch' in your FS settings and all will be well - if that's what the problem is.

Rgds

John

[carthorse]

Ok, i did some testing and here are my step by step results.

info: "Pause on task switch" for FS is disabled.

1. I booked a flight from PAED to PAMR (distance: 3nm).
2. The client asked me to load fuel, i entered: 240 lbs
3. I completed the flight. The info on the aircraft at http://flynet.en-studios.de/ showed 107 kgs in the tanks (235.4 lbs).
4. I booked the same flight in the opposite direction.
5. When the client prompted me for fuel, i noticed that the lbs radio button was checked, and the amount was 107 lbs. This should have been 235 lbs or 107 kgs. So the client must have remembered which radiobutton i checked from first time i fueled, but it loaded the textbox with kgs.
6. I switched the radio button to kgs, and it converted 107lbs to 48kgs
7. I switched the radio button back to lbs and it converted 48kgs to 105lbs.
8. ....so i entered 107 kg of fuel and completed the second flight. I was not charged for any additional fuel.

So in conclusion, i noticed 2 problems.
1. The client remembered that i had checked pounds, but it put kgs in the textbox which cuts my quantity by over half. So if the client could force the radio button back to kgs it would solve the problem.
2. when you change the kgs/lbs radio button it incorrectly converts the value. It converted 48 kg to 105 lbs, this is a conversion of 2.1875 whereas the correct conversion should have used 1 kilogram = 2.20462262 pounds.

Hope this clears things up.

[joefremont]

2. when you change the kgs/lbs radio button it incorrectly converts the value. It converted 48 kg to 105 lbs, this is a conversion of 2.1875 whereas the correct conversion should have used 1 kilogram = 2.20462262 pounds.

As far as the conversion is conserned, since the client only handles fuel in whole numbers its dropping the fractions rather than rounding them off. I don't really see this as a problem as its something most of us will set once and never change.

[CAPFlyer]

5. When the client prompted me for fuel, i noticed that the lbs radio button was checked, and the amount was 107 lbs. This should have been 235 lbs or 107 kgs. So the client must have remembered which radiobutton i checked from first time i fueled, but it loaded the textbox with kgs.
6. I switched the radio button to kgs, and it converted 107lbs to 48kgs
7. I switched the radio button back to lbs and it converted 48kgs to 105lbs.
8. ....so i entered 107 kg of fuel and completed the second flight. I was not charged for any additional fuel.

Okay, here's the problem. You were seeing things (I'm being serious here about this). The Client always loads up quantity in KGS by default. Had you clicked the LBS radio button, you would have seen the correct amount shown. The position of the radio button at load up means nothing because it's not activated until you click one.

[carthorse]

Thanks for the reply CAPFlyer,

You had me thinking i was crazy, so i went back and documented each step. I took to following screenshots to illustrate my problem.

1. Opened the client for first time.
2. Entered Fuel for first flight (300 lbs).


3. A shot of the client just before the flight ended. Notice the Fuel on board reads 134 kg.


4. (without closing the client) Entered fuel for 2nd booked flight. Notice "lbs" is selected, and 134 is in the textbox. This is how the screen appeared after i clicked "Fly Booked Flight".


It appears to be maintaining the state of the radiobutton instead of resetting it each time you get to the fuel screen.
Hope this helps,
JP

[CAPFlyer]

Must be something peculiar to your computer then. I just flew 3 flights and it reset to show KG in the window and radio button without a problem even though I loaded pounds the previous time I'd flown.