With the talk of introducing different fare classes which allows the possibility of reducing seat capacity without impacting earnings, it would be a good time to let the client enforce aircraft structural limits. At the moment weight restrictions are not imposed other than to reduce cargo carried to try and avoid exceeding MZFW. All booked passengers and baggage are carried regardless, if even that exceeds MZFW.
I've been having a little play in Paintshop to try and give you a visual impression of what I'd like to see. For this to work, all aircraft would have to have the DOW/MZFW/MTOW/MLW weights on the database. These weights are to be used in calculating payload availability/user restrictions to enable aircraft to be operated within the aircrafts structural limits.
So, how could this work? As now, the client will load your aircraft to the MZFW and then when you start the client for the flight you will get a weight sheet where you can alter your payload and anticipated fuel figures so that the Client can ascertain that the intended flight will not exceed any structural weight limits of the aircraft. Once the weights have been adjusted, the Client will 'allow' you to proceed to the refuelling stage as usual. In practise you would have something like this :-
When you press the 'FlyNow' button, before you get the refuel page you get the Weight (and balance) page where the Client will check the figures against the database. The Client will input the default (booked) number and weight of the passengers, the weight of their baggage, the weight of the booked cargo and the amount of fuel currently in the aircraft tanks. The expected block fuel will remain blank at this stage. In the example shown below, the client has input the figures for the number of booked passengers, baggage, cargoi and fuel. You can see straight away that the aircraft has exceeded it's MZFW due to the generous baggage allowances that FlyNET allow. The aircraft ZFW is overweight by 1515kgs.
To bring the aircraft within it's structural limit, I have reduced the amount of passengers by 15. This will get the aircraft below the MZFW. I have input the amount of departure fuel that I will be loading to, and have input the expected block fuel. Hitting the 'Calculate' button, has given me my aircraft weights and the client has confirmed that I can now proceed to the refuel stage. The calculate button can be used as many times as you like until you get the aircraft within limits
When you proceed to the refuel page and fuel your aircraft the client would check that the 'actual ZFW' plus the requested fuel load still does not exceed MTOW. If it does then the Client would report the error and give you the option to alter the fuel request or alter the payload. At the end of a flight, the Client would check MTOW less block fuel and confirm aircraft did not exceed MLW. If MLW is exceeded a penalty could be given to the pilot.
If this were to be implemented, the MZFW cargo restriction could be made redundant and the cargo figure could always show the maximum weight that the aircraft could carry if configured as a cargo/QC aircraft. This would allow VA's to operate any aircraft as a true 'combi' as they can reduce the pax to any number that they wish and fill up with cargo. Actual number of passengers carried would be reported to the database if that figure was needed for any metrics relating to geographical areas.
I have no idea how easy this would be to implement or even if other users would like it. I personally think it is a good idea and would further enhance the FlyNET experience. This sort of restriction is already implemented and used with the 'client' program at FSEconomy - it will not let you fly if your theoretical payload is above MTOW.
Please note : These are just Client based calculations for the payload and would NOT alter the loaded weights in FS other than fuel, as is the case now. There are too many variations of payload stations and to program the client to make changes I don't think is possible. I dread to think what it could do to the c. of g.
Rgds
John
