With the multitude of economy add-ons for Flight Simulator (FSEconomy, OnAir, Air Hauler, etc) sometimes pilots may find themselves with more fuel on board than SimBrief requires, such as the flight was tankered in, previous pilot fueled up more than needed, etc. I would love to see a simple box be added for Fuel on Board where anything greater than Min T/O Fuel + Taxi would just be added to the extra column.
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Hi, thanks for the suggestion. We may consider this for the next update.
Best regards,
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I second this! As a real world Dispatcher, I think this is a great idea!
To add to this, at my company we use SABRE for dispatch release building/flight planning.
With SABRE, we have a couple options that we can use for fuel if we want the computer to plan a specific fuel value.
In the real world, we have the following:
- A field where the dispatcher can manually enter a specific DEPART fuel (out of the gate).
- A field where the dispatcher can manually enter a specific ARRIVE fuel (in to the gate).
- A field where the dispatcher can manually enter a specific TAKEOFF weight.
- A field where the dispatcher can manually enter a specific LANDING weight.
So a question you might ask is what is a practical scenario for why you would manually enter any one of these fields? Great question!
Reasons for manually enter DEPART fuel - like you said above @mattch49 , IRL if the flight was planned with excessive fuel (i.e. tankering by the previous dispatcher), then the we can enter into DEPART fuel the previous flight’s planned arrival fuel (if the planned arrival fuel was less than required fuel for flight, then it would ignore the fuel entered into DEPART fuel and calculate the HIGHER of the two. Another reason you would manually enter DEPART fuel manually is if the flight was over fueled unintentionally OR the flight was “tail swapped” to a different tail number and that new aircraft was previously scheduled to go somewhere further than the destination planned.
(e.g. flight is planned from LAX-LAS on aircraft 1 but aircraft 1 breaks… however, aircraft 2 is a spare aircraft at the airport so your flight is changed to aircraft 2 but here’s the catch… aircraft 2 just came out of maintenance and was initially planned to go LAX-MDW two days ago and is gassed up for MDW… what do you do? You clearly are going to be way overfueled for LAS. So there are two options, either you build a ridiculous route to burn the fuel off so you can land below MLDW or you have to defuel. Well for the sake of the example, lets say we have a light payload and are able to go LAX-LAS and still land below MLDW. In this case, you could enter the actual FOB in the DEPART fuel field.) the non-required fuel for the flight is added to the release as EXTRA fuel.
Reasons for manually enter ARRIVE fuel - …TANKERING or ROUND TRIP FUELING - i.e. excessive fuel costs at arrival airport OR fuel shortage at arrival airport…
(e.g. IRL lets say you are tankering this flight. The dispatcher will reach out to the aircraft’s NEXT flight’s dispatcher and ask them what the release fuel (block fuel) is for the next flight. You can then enter that fuel into ARRIVE fuel. You have to be careful doing this though because it might cause you to exceed max allowed takeoff weight or max landing weight. If that is the case, you would enter anywhere from 1000lbs to 2000lbs LESS than either max allowed takeoff weight or max landing weight into ARRIVE weight instead - this is where DEPART weight and ARRIVE weight come into play…) the non-required fuel for the flight is added to the release as EXTRA fuel.
Reasons for manually enter DEPART weight- …TANKERING…
(e.g. if ENROUTE BURN fuel + MAX ALLOWED LANDING WEIGHT is greater than max allowed takeoff weight, then your planned takeoff weight is limited by takeoff and not by landing. This would only happen if you either were performance limited on takeoff (i.e. a steep obstacle limit weight for example) OR a long flight - such as PHX-HNL but it is a tankering flight. In this case, you most likely could not fit the fuel required for the aircraft’s next flight or up to 1000 to 2000lbs below max landing weight, so in this case, you would plan a takeoff weight of 1000 to 2000lbs below max allowed TAKEOFF weight.) … the non-required fuel for the flight is added to the release as EXTRA fuel.
Reasons for manually enter ARRIVE weight- …TANKERING or arrival weight restrictions (i.e. noise abatement related)…
(e.g. if tankering but cant fit all of fuel for the NEXT flight due to weight limitations, then we typically just fuel up to a weight of 1000 to 2000lbs below max allowable landing weight. An example of manually entering a landing weight due to a noise abatement weight restriction would be the following: KDCA there is a weight restriction of 139,200lbs if landing flaps 30 from 2200LCL to 0600LCL (104,000lbs if landing flaps 40 from 2200LCL to 0600LCL). Lets say the flight is booked to be a full flight. You could limit the ARRIVE weight to be 139,200lbs to ensure that you don’t exceed the curfew weight restriction and cause the flight to divert. If the weight hit is bad enough, we will either tell the passengers there is a chance we will have to divert to BWI or IAD, weather permitting, or give them the option to take the next flight in the morning to DCA). … the non-required fuel for the flight is added to the release as EXTRA fuel.
@SimBrief based off of what I have stated above, do you think it would be beneficial to add the following to simbrief?:
- DEPART Fuel
- ARRIVE Fuel
- DEPART Weight
- ARRIVE Weight
Thank you sir!
16 Likes
Would love to see this!
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I like the Idea, it’s amazing.
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amazing idea. i would love that
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I think this way you can make it the way you want it or the other options still exist. @simbrief is already an amazing tool and I think this is just another way to enhance the experience further. Especially since there’s support from a real world dispatcher.
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I would love to see this integrated!
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Good points, would also like to see this in the next update
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While I appreciate all the responses, I believe it’s a bit much to ask for as a first step.
My request is for a simple Fuel on Board box, baby steps folks.
Love the idea, the flexibility in the planning process the better.
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I’m definitely on board with this!
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Love this explanation! Would love to see something like this in the future!
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I would love to see something like this. Sounds awesome
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Hi, “Block Fuel” and “Arrival Fuel” options have now been added in version 2.15.0.
Best regards,
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