How to cross the Atlantic Ocean

[Meck]

Hey,

since I'm running out of ideas what to fly next in FSX, I thought a transatlantic-flight in a modern tube is one thing I haven't done yet but would maybe try... Well I tried it once (France to EastCoast-US) and ended up with no fuel half way over the ocean.
Now a few questions:

How do I set my flightplan let's say from Paris to NY - tried it already and the route looks kinda strange: going somewhere over Canaries and then across to Cuba, then north... I changed the waypoints to almost a straight line from Spain to the coast, but then

Next problem: I started with 100% fuel climbed to ~25000feet and a speed ~300kias with the def. 747. Some few hundred miles after passing the Azores I ran out of fuel and had to ditch... Did I miss something?

Last thing for now: I tried to use up to 16x speed and always missed the ATC until they cancled my flightplan; is there a way to jump to normal speed when a message pops up?

Hope some adept captains can help me  :)


Meck

[Anxyous]

Your route will look like a curve, because it follows the curvature of the Earth. You wouldn't spot it, if it was running along the Equator.

[Brando14100]

Your route will look like a curve, because it follows the curvature of the Earth. You wouldn't spot it, if it was running along the Equator.

No, that's not what he means. What he said is that (This has happened to me) when he puts in the Flight Plan, it takes him all around the world to get to his destination, not directly to it.

8-)

[Brett_Henderson]

Your route will look like a curve, because it follows the curvature of the Earth. You wouldn't spot it, if it was running along the Equator.

Yeah..

[Brett_Henderson]

Your route will look like a curve, because it follows the curvature of the Earth. You wouldn't spot it, if it was running along the Equator.

No, that's not what he means. What he said is that (This has happened to me) when he puts in the Flight Plan, it takes him all around the world to get to his destination, not directly to it.

8-)

Right.. but he also said...

I changed the waypoints to almost a straight line from Spain to the coast, but then

So in reality, he was taking himself all over the globe.. instead of flying the great circle..

[Brett_Henderson]

To see that you might be getting into trouble.. just monitor your fuel situation in-flight. Take your remaining fuel.. divide it by total fuel flow (all the engines) .. that will tell you how many hours of fuel you have..  and you can check that against the ETA in the GPS.


Piloting  ;)

[Brando14100]

So you should leave the plan the way they give it to you? Even if on a trip from NYC to Paris it takes you west up over Alaska and then east? That has happened to me. Ii'm not sure I quite understand this.

8-)

[C]

A few things to consider:

Route wise, for example planning a route from Paris, you will most probably route initially to an oceanic entry point off the SW coast of Ireland. To add a bit of realism, take a look at the "NATS" (North Atlantic Tracks) for today - these are the published (they change daily to suit traffic and weather conditions) routes that airliners will fly.

This is one of the southernmost from todays west bound tracks:

LIMRI 52/20 51/30 51/40 50/50 KOBEV YQX

That track runs from LIMRI reporting point of the coast of Eire, then the numbers represent lat and longs of the oceanic waypoints (52/20 = 52N 020W), then ending overhead Gander (YQX). From there you'd follow a standard routing to your US destination.

Plan in the mid FL300s, and aim for an IAS in the range 250-280 (aim for a true mach of around .80 - north altlantic procedures rely on aircraft holding a mach number).

I can't really be any more specific. My Atlantic crossing experience is rather limited to one aeroplane which is a bit different to modern generation airliners (other than we get across quicker!)

[Meck]

Your route will look like a curve, because it follows the curvature of the Earth. You wouldn't spot it, if it was running along the Equator.

No, that's not what he means. What he said is that (This has happened to me) when he puts in the Flight Plan, it takes him all around the world to get to his destination, not directly to it.

8-)

Right.. but he also said...

I changed the waypoints to almost a straight line from Spain to the coast, but then

So in reality, he was taking himself all over the globe.. instead of flying the great circle..

I get this - the shortest connection isn't the straight line but some sort of curve towards the pole (the thing with the string around a globe). The flightplaner just send me almost to the equator for a trip from europe to northern US.

And the issue with my fuel: I had 100% at the beginning, but since I don't know how to check the fuelburn of an airplane, I thought it should last for such a flight (since I can't load more than that...). And I do know that I can check my percentage of fuel (it's even displayed in the panel) and that I might have made it to dry land but I just wanted to know how far I can go - well it wasn't far enough!

[Wii]

It also sounds like your plane is packed to the rims with cargo, lose the weight and you will also be more fuel efficient.

[Meck]

Could be! But shouldn't a 747 make it even with heavy cargo?  :-?

[RickG]

Something that really made sense of these sort of flights is if you can find a map, with the world all spread out, and the North Pole right in the center. Polar projection I think it's called. Makes it very easy to visualize that a straight line isn't very straight at all. If I was to go from Vancouver Canada  to Japan, the flight heads up the coast, thru Alaska, and parts of Russia--very little 'over-water' flying.

[Allen_Z]

Anxyous

I can has
cheezburger?

LOL cats



http://icanhascheezburger.com/

I KNOW THAT'S NOT THE SUBJECT

[C]

[quote]Could be! But shouldn't a 747 make it even with heavy cargo?

[Meck]

Just looking at fuel stats for the 747...

Capacity: 150,000kg.
transatlantic sector of about 8hrs, realistically more than 90-100 metric tonnes of fuelburn

So I should have at least 50t of spare fuel?! But I'm sure my engines ran out of it and refused to pull me any further