ETOPS not required in planning, but anyway in plan

SimBrief Dispatch
1

Had an issue with a flight KLAX-EDDP (B77F) where Simbrief claims ‘ETOPS not required for this route!’ in the calculation result for ETOPS during the planning phase, but then when I generate the flight plan, ETOPS is included anyway. This makes it so I can’t actually adjust the entry/exit point, and just stuck with whatever Simbrief decides.

Could this be that it’s just on the limit of ETOPS being required or not, and different numbers being used between the calculation on the planner vs the final plan?

Route: BEALE Q842 WINEN DCT KU57O DCT KU78S DCT KU06W DCT KP21A DCT 5330N09000W 58N080W 61N070W DCT FEDDY DCT IKMAN DCT EMBOK DCT 65N050W 66N040W 6630N03000W 66N020W 64N010W DCT GUNPA DCT KARLI DCT DOROR DCT NORTA DCT ADMOS T959 KOJEC

--------------------------------------------------------------------
   ETOPS/ETP CRITICAL POINT INFORMATION (ETOPS RULE TIME: 330MIN)
   --------------------------------------------------------------

      CRITICAL POINT FOR FUEL REQUIREMENTS: N5824.4 W07852.3

ETOPS INFORMATION
--------------------------------------------------------------------
ETOPS   SAP       ELTME TIME   DIST     MORA    ICE CFUEL  FOB  COND
                   (AAP)        ISA      W/C
		     
ENTRY   CYYQ       0409 0122    440      023    0.5  12.8  58.6  DX
N5756.2 W08010.3   (CYYQ)       M02     M012

EXIT    CYYQ       0415 0129    475      023    0.5  13.7  57.8  DX
N5824.4 W07852.3   (CYFB)       M01     M014
--------------------------------------------------------------------
ENRTE ALTNS  (WEATHER SUITABILITY PERIOD)
CYYQ  08:37  10:49    WX MIN:  600-3219     FCST WX:  9999-9650

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2

I was able to reproduce this earlier and now cannot. I will keep looking into it later.

Regards,

Tim

1 Like
3

Hello, I was able to reproduce this as well. I have sent this up to the dev team to have a look. I would say for now ensure the ETOPS slider is off on this route.

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1 Like
4

Hi, thanks for the report. This was due to the auto freight value not being calculated consistently in the ETOPS calculator.

Note that the ETOPS scenario function can only approximately estimate the aircraft’s takeoff weight. Because of this, sometimes there can still be slight differences between the ETOPS pre-calculation and the one in the final OFP (since the latter performs a much more accurate enroute fuel burn and payload calculation).

If this happens again in the future, I think it still should be possible to customize the ETOPS scenario by manually entering the entry/exit/diversion airports. The ETOPS scenario tool might report that ETOPS is not required, but the airports you enter should still be considered in the final OFP (if ETOPS does turn out to be required after all).

In any case, I’ve made an update that should make the calculation more consistent for cargo aircraft, so it should be much better now.

Best regards,

1 Like