How to cross the Atlantic Ocean

[Meck]

Ok, just thought (as stated above) that climbing should be within a slower speed than cruising...

Though I don't know what happens in the quito mission: is ATC giving you a wrong speed? I'll try that one, too! Thanks for the heads-up...

[Brett_Henderson]

[quote][quote]That's what I'm trying atm

[C]

[quote]

230kias is WELL above stall speed..

[Brett_Henderson]

[quote][quote]

230kias is WELL above stall speed..

[OVERLORD_CHRIS]

The info above may not be correct and is just my assumption. My only experience I have is flying airliners myself in FS and witnessing the mach number change value, and about a semesters worth of Private Pilot ground school.  ;)

There is a reason why pilots actually fly the plane to cruse altitude, there are some changes in the way the aircraft handles as you ascend that AP can't adjust for.

I hope someone can confirm or deny my above idea as a possible cause  ;)

From sitting up front with our pilots on a real C-17 during climb out, they fly it up to 10,000ft with flaps & slats at 1 notch down after 10k ft they fly clean the rest of the way to 30k ft, once they are up past 25k ft though they turn auto pilot on, but manually control the throttles to compensate for any changes before it levels off and the turn on auto throttle.  

And I did the same thing on my first crossing to Spain like you did, and splash down 1 hour in to flight due to, to high of a climb speed, going way to slow and leaving my flaps at at 1/2 because I forgot to make sure they were all they way up.

Also same thing when you finally make it over, if you go to slow with out the flaps down, you fall tail first into French country side like I did.

For starters so you don't crash in the water, you should try and just fly down the east coast from KJFK to like FL just to see how much fuel you notice is burnt on take off, and how much you burn at cruising speed up high, that way you will know how far you can go on like 80k of gas, and if you do happen to run out, you can at least put it down at one the air fields, instead of the Atlantic.  :)

This way you are not way to heavy on fuel, and can go higher and cruise higher. Also good if you are testing out another fav plane you might have like KC-135/707, that can go from Washington State to the east coast at 38,000ft on like 60-80k of gas, it's just the motors burn alot on take off, but are pretty good at cruise.

[anikun07]

I did experience the same problem during the Quito Approach mission as well because you're being told to take the 747's speed to 210 kts and to make a sharp 180 degree turn for an approach.

[C]

[quote]

I'm not a real-life jet pilot

[Brett_Henderson]

OK.. I did a quick test. I fully loaded the default 747 and took off from KJFK.. took a GPS direct route to EGLL.. user weather set to no wind.

I strived for maximum fuel efficiency..

[Ang2dogs]

WOW, what a great subject. I've been flightsiming for around 4 years and I mainly fly light aircraft. Ocasionaly I'll fly the Lear 45 or the 737. The only real overwater flight I did was in the Lear jet, from LA to Honalulu, Hawaii., I ran out of fuel just as I touched down at PHNL. And if I'm in the mood I'll fly the 737 across the US ( ex. KLAX to KJFK ) and going with the jet stream I'll be lucky if I have 10 to 15 % fuel left over, going east to west against the jet stream, I'm lucky to have 5 to 10 % fuel left. And I'm pretty sure that either way I'm below the min amount of fuel left over ( wich I think is 35 or 40 minuts ) requiered to make it to an Alt landing site. But reading this thread I've pick up alot of knowledge on how to improve my fuel mangement. But what I've really notice is that you can't fly a straight line on around globe ( simply put, look at a globe of the earth and use a string and you'll notice that Point A to point B might be closer than you think.

[C]

[quote]
Once level, I set up for Mach .75 cruise and then monitored fuel consumption. 20,000 pounds per hour (5,000 per engine) left me with enough fuel to fly to Heathrow and if need be, hold for SEVEN hours ..

[Brett_Henderson]

[quote][quote]
Once level, I set up for Mach .75 cruise and then monitored fuel consumption. 20,000 pounds per hour (5,000 per engine) left me with enough fuel to fly to Heathrow and if need be, hold for SEVEN hours ..

[Brett_Henderson]

Curse you all for making me think about this stuff

[C]

It is odd. For example, if we're really tight on gas, we'll use the higher power setting of our standard climb powers to get up to height. Secondly, ATC generally want you up at your initial cruising level quite quickly, also factoring into account that climb performance can be limited in the last few thousand feet of a climb (and of course, ATC expect a minimum of 500fpm) as you are pushing towards the edge of the envelope for the weight you are at. Also, to put it in perspective, when diverting over 250-300miles, we will still climb as high as possible, as the extra fuel burnt in the climb is made up by the fact the cruise is shorter and descent is longer.

Back to atlantic flying, another consideration fuel wise is to plan to cruise at the level you enter oceanic airspace. As the airspace is "procedural", getting permission to climb may often be a no go. As an example, last weekend we joined oceanic airspace with 3 other aircraft within 10 miles laterally, and spread over FL320 - 380. As you can imagine, flying a NAT we were all pretty much coincident all the way across (although we "won", overtaking all three of them by the other side!)

[Peedge]

... I think I read somewhere a rule of thumb that says if you can spend 20 minutes in cruise at the higher altitude you're likely to make back what you spent on the climb.

Also beware too low a speed ... lately I've been flying a Posky 777, and found for example at 33,000ft if I slowed from M.79 to M.75 I saved 3.5% in fuel flow rate ... but that's in pounds per hour, so given it's gonna take me 5% longer to get there, I end up burning more fuel overall.

I found this discussion on real-world 777 cruise speeds:
http://www.airliners.net/aviation-forum ... ain/173561

I'm sure you'll find similar for 747.

Paul

[Anxyous]

Brett, I thought Vy climbs were always done at full power, and pitching for the speed?