I have been trying to do the above by using the PA24 modelling in SimBrief’s available airframes. The fuel calculations work out close enough for ‘government work’, but the TAS used for the PA24 is around 165 - 170 kts. The P28R (ARROW III) has a TAS of about 139 kts so the leg timings are a bit out (even for 'government work!).
Is there a work-around I can use? Would I be better off using the Beech BE24 which has a TAS of 140 kts?
I have just answered my own question. Adapting the Beech BE24, by editing all the relevant data fields within the SimBrief BE24 installed aircraft as base (no coding required!), has produced an accurate flight planning tool when flying the P28-R Arrow III aircraft.
This has, of course, opened up myriad possibilities for other light aircraft not included in SimBrief’s muliple list (NOT a criticism at all - there are just too many aircraft!).
Not sure if this is the right place to ask, but is there any chance it could be put on a “wishlist”?
Could the SimBrief flight planning tool be amended to work in weight units kgs/lbs, and not metric tonnes, so that it could easily be used for light aircraft? I was thinking for aircraft below a max take-off weight of, say, 10,000 lbs or 4,500 kgs.
Hi, you seem to often be using the “BAW” OFP layout. For obvious reasons, BAW has their OFP set up in tonnes due to their fleet composition. Generally we keep these layouts as realistic as possible so I don’t think we can customize this particular layout for use with light aircraft.
However, the default “LIDO” layout will show the weights in single kg/lbs for small aircraft. You can also reference the Interactive OFP Sample for a guide on how to use the LIDO layout.
Yes, we do use the BAW layout a lot. We are actually the BAVirtual airline, and the reason being is that we go to to use the BAW layout in later courses we run on the various airline aircraft types as used by BAW in real life.
We have used the LIDO layout in the past, but it means teaching yet another flight planning tool. Within BAVirtual we start teaching on C172 for a basic PPL style course, then the PA28-R for a basic (analogue instrumented) IR course, followed by a Beech Be58 Baron for a Multi-engine course (qualifying trainees for the VATSIM P1, P2 and P3 ratings respectively). Each of the airline fleets has its own training materials and are taught outside of these courses.
I suspect we will go back to using the LIDO format. Having said that, a work-around we use for the BAW format, is to calculate a kgs/nm fuel consumption preflight, for each leg. Using MSFS2020 we can then inspect the fuel loading at each leg completion to get a “howgozit” figure (simpler in practice than in explanation!).