Fuel left onboard..

[DaveB]

Steve..

Go and have a look at the VC9 stats page. You'll see that every single aircraft (with one exception) has in excess of 1000kg onboard.. most have well in excess of 1000kg onboard and a third of them have over 2000kg onboard. 1 aircraft has 595kg onboard (a 952/3) AXOP and has been left by Neville Hepburn.

I get the feeling here that you are presuming the MANAGEMENT (as you keep typing in bold type) are out to get either you personally or the other 'Pilots'. Believe me (if you will) when I say that the management have neither the time nor inclination to initiate vendetta's on our pilots as a whole or individually. All this boils down to is pilots taking an aircraft with XXXXkg onboard and leaving it with XXX onboard. If this is through ignorance, then sobeit. Consider this prod with a sharp stick (end protected by rubber stopper) either a reminder that what might be left onboard may not be an early christmas gift for someone to make a nice profit or.. don't leave an aircraft empty.. whichever applies. I'm sure that many pilots/most pilots will look at a list of available aircraft and check to see what fuel is onboard. Who's gonna pick something up with 595kg onboard when there are 32 others with in excess of 1000kg oboard unless they like to fly one particular airframe.. the one with 595kg onboard??

Of course.. there are pilots that don't give a monkey's either way.

DaveB :tab:

[Scorpius]

Hi Dave,

Until these posts on fuel remaining started flying around I thought it was ok to buy as little fuel as possible, therefore making as much money as I could.

Will this misdemeanour go on my disciplinary record?

Neville

[DaveB]

No Neville.. most certainly not

The idea really IS that you fly your routes and make as much money as possible but.. not at the expense of someone else if you can possibly avoid it ;-) Embroiled in all this is getting from A to B by buying exactly the right amount of fuel for the flight.. plus or minus. If everyone went around running fuel down.. the point comes where we end up with a fleet carrying minimum fuel (good) but with no safety margin (not so good) and flights from airports with expensive fuel either don't get flown or profits flying from those airports is much diminished. There are many such airports that I won't fly to without giving it some thought beforehand and gently tank-up before making that flight. Leaving an aircraft almost empty gives the pilot who last flew it a nice little earner but leaves the next pilot with rather more fuel to buy than would have been necessary.

You can never be 'bang on' with fuel and buying 10,000kg when 5 would do is equally fruitless (though that would certainly give the next pilot a lot of latitude) Quite a few of our pilots fly with Vatsim and obey ATC (I don't but some do) and a hold or go-around situation will leave you in the brown stuff if the previous pilot left the aircraft empty and all he bought for the trip was the A-B fuel.

At the end of the day, you make the FlyNET experience as real and as in-depth as you see fit and this is the beauty of it. All we're saying is that one mans quick profit will turn into the next mans lack of profit. By all means, tank-up in small increments then go for the expensive flight rather than take whats there and leave it empty for the next bloke ;-)

ATB

DaveB :tab:

[johnsmithe15]

Yes, yes, yes to all the above Dave.

I like you generally pick an aircraft from the list that I have the serial number in my fleet, so whether its full or empty I take it.

The flight I did last night in G-ASGG left it almost dry at TBPB, not a worry as it is highly unlikely that anyone but me will be bringing that airframe back to its home base.

What Im trying to say in my previous post is why cant we agree to name names and give a slap on the wrist to pilots who do this, by making obscure references, as is the usual way on this forum, it just gets everyone paranoid.

I think we are all grown-up enough to take it on the chin.

And more importantly the very person who has committed this infraction may be the one person, due to inexperience, not reading the posts, not realising it is them and therefore not learning how to remedy the situation.

I can garantee you that a realworld pilot WOULD be left in no doubt

Johnny

[TSR2]

What Im trying to say in my previous post is why cant we agree to name names and give a slap on the wrist to pilots who do this, by making obscure references, as is the usual way on this forum, it just gets everyone paranoid.

Hi Johnny,

As I've said before, some folk may take the VA flying to the Nth degree of reality and some don't. If we go slapping folk on the wrist who've come in on fumes, it doesn't really set the fun tone does it? I can understand folk getting miffed if an aircraft is away from home and was loaded up heavy prior to leaving for the return leg. But if an aircraft is brough back to its home, heavy or light, then its fair game.

Maybe rather than slapping on the wrist (which I'm really not in agreement with) we could produce some sort of table on the stats page showing in percentage terms who full or empty folk are leaving aircraft at home bases. Then its there for all to see. I'd need to have a word with someone much cleverer than I who can decide if that would be technically possible.

My parting shot (again) is... its NOT real. (sorry Tonks)

[fighterpilot]

It was me who made the original infraction that Dave mentioned, and although i have already replied to him i feel i should put down my thoughts to you all. It all happened due to my lack of knowledge etc with real world flying operations, and see it as helpful to be told when i muck up. From now on i am sure i will pay more attention to the fuel levels in the fleet and refuel more responsibly. Although this is not real i don't see why we cant use reasonbly realistic practices while simming.

Richard (Now much the wiser)

[RAF_Quantum]

Hi guys,

I've personally not checked any of the fleet so do not have names to name and don't wish to do so. A lot of folk take great pains to make things as real as they can whilst others may have a more casual approach, we don't mind either styles. I think this thread has made people a little bit more aware of the fuel aspect flying on FlyNET and how a little bit of thought and planning can go a long way to helping everyone least of all yourselves. Not long ago I flew a Vanguard across to Canada and encountered stronger than expected headwinds using real weather. Luckily I had plent of fuel reserves and was able to continue the flight without having to sweat too much. If I'd taken minimum fuel to cover just the block fuel I would have had to back out and refly the route with a greater amount of fuel onboard. The reserves are there for your benefit. I am hoping in the not too distant future that FlyNET will introduce the ability to divert without penalty which will help those who fly using real weather and in bad weather. Employing best practise on your fuel calcs is a natural progression towards improving your sim experience in the knowledge that you are using calculations that are used in real world flight operations. I know 'it's not real', but hey, we all like things to look and feel as they would do in the real world.

Not a lot more to be said really so happy flying everyone

Regards

John

[johnsmithe15]

You are right, slap on the wrist is a bit petty sounding and this is meant to be a fun hobby not a way of life, I guess what I was trying to put across is that I would personally find it more useful to be told if I did a bad thing or caused someone else a problem rather than seeing a blanket complaint and not actually being sure if its me or not that has caused the problem.

Guys if I cause a problem please dont hesitate to PM me and let me know, I would prefer this approach, I learn something new almost every day, thats why I like flight simming, it grows, you learn new stuff, keeps it interesting.

Johnny

[JW]

Gents,
Just caught up on this issue. I am one of those who operates on the zero fuel basis - but in mitigation, only because when I started out with CBFS all the planes I flew had zero, or very low, fuel on board when I selected them. I therefore presumed this was the norm. Have now changed the way I fuel. Mea culpa!

[DanKH]

I've been following this thread, and fortunately I can safely say that this will never apply to me ;-)

What I've left behind or not has up until now been to my own fortune or risk ;-)

That is of course because I only use and fly on single aircraft from our fleet .... so there ...

But I can easily see the frustration you get if you each and every time pick up an near-empty aircraft....

I f I ever should want to try a different aircraft, I'll sure keep it in mind.

Blue skies to all.