Flight Planning

[emerydc8]

Interesting. I knew a guy who went to fly in the Grand Canyon doing tours in the early nineties.

I was struck by the green-grass syndrome too and went back to school in 1996. When I finished I realized the other profession wasn't as "green" as I thought. Plus, most of the people I ran into just wanted to talk about airplanes.

[Will]

No need to be specific, but I may know the guy you knew, because it was a small community. All the action was out of Grand Canyon Airport, which was in Tusayan, AZ, which only had about 3000 residents. A few million tourists per year, but only a few thousand residents. I lumped them up into three groups: locals (mostly Navajo, but not always), pilots, and people who were running from something. Go to the (only) bar for a drink, and you would be likely to find yourself sitting next to a 22-year-old C-206 pilot with 650 hours, a Navajo who had grown up in the desert, and a guy who came to Tusayan because he had warrants for his arrest for spouse abuse and DUI. It was a fascinating subculture.

I actually ran into a guy who went there because he had fled a cult, and written a book about the cult, and then was being hounded by the media for interviews. He felt that the Grand Canyon was one place where the media wouldn't find him. He gave me a copy of his book. He asked many questions about airplanes, and I think was happy to talk about anything except the cult.

[Jeroen Hoppenbrouwers]

Bending the topic a bit towards the other side.

One of our SATCOM customers is UAL, which runs a heavily centralized dispatch operation. They dispatch everything from Chicago, from a huge center with a large number of dispatchers. Even the remote Pacific atoll flights such as UAL154 and UAL155 (Guam-Honolulu via Chuuk, Pohnpei, Kosrae, Kwajalein and Majoro -- and back) are dispatched from Chicago in real-time.

Real-time means that the paperwork starts streaming in while you are on approach to a one-hour stopover.  Your flight deck printer starts spitting out about 12 feet of paper, which is fed from Chicago to the aircraft via ACARS.  On those remote islands and atolls, this means via Iridium SATCOM (thus "via me"). I can get about one 220-byte block through in 10 seconds, with another 10 to ack it back to base. A flight plan is about 40 blocks worth of printable data. Add the loadable FMS route, dangerous goods manifest, crew stuff, takeoff data, landing data, final weights . . . and you see how hard the datalink equipment has to pump to get everything ready for safe and legal takeoff.

In this way, they have added a very convenient but fragile paperwork pipe to an already fragile operation, where they burn one crew on Guam-Majuro (about 11 hours) and the next on Majuro-Honolulu (about 5 hours). All potential to time out or break the airplane and you're stuck, and a "rescue" aircraft needs to be dispatched (typically from Guam) to continue your mission.

These guys and gals pull this one off three times a week, and with great success.  Hats off to everybody who makes it happen.  I feel privileged to bring the pipe.


Hoppie

Two aircraft regularly scheduled for this Island Hopper (next to other Guam missions):

https://flightaware.com/live/flight/N37293
https://flightaware.com/live/flight/N77296

If you want to start flight planning . . . (mind the runway length!):

https://flightaware.com/live/airport/PTSA

PS. Green grass ... hmm yes. I know the feeling.

[Will]

Your flight deck printer starts spitting out about 12 feet of paper

How large is the paper? All the flight planning software I've seen, which isn't much (and may in fact be limited to just PFPX), seems to be based on 8.5 x 11 paper or thereabouts. But the printer in PSX seems to use a 6" wide roll? And who checks the quantity of paper and ink before the flight departs? Does your SATCOM system use a Boeing printer or an Iridium printer?

[Hardy Heinlin]

I just moved this discussion back to the "Hangar 7" section and posted a copy of the actual tutorial text in the Tutorials section: http://aerowinx.com/board/index.php?topic=3745.0


|-|ardy

[Jeroen Hoppenbrouwers]

Your flight deck printer starts spitting out about 12 feet of paper

How large is the paper? All the flight planning software I've seen, which isn't much (and may in fact be limited to just PFPX), seems to be based on 8.5 x 11 paper or thereabouts. But the printer in PSX seems to use a 6" wide roll? And who checks the quantity of paper and ink before the flight departs? Does your SATCOM system use a Boeing printer or an Iridium printer?

Some messages seem designed for a narrow 2" cash register roll, others are for a wider model printer, 6" seems about right. Obviously all UAL aircraft have the wider model now but it is not a letter sheet printer. It is plain thermo paper, so you only need a few rolls of paper aboard and no toner/ink. It definitely is part of the preflight checks. The SATCOM system has no clue about the printer at all. Everything goes first to the Communications Management Unit CMU, the central message router, which connects to three radios (VHF, SATCOM, HF) and a few aircraft avionics boxes (FMS, its own internal ACARS AOC, the printer, and the DFDAU).

Narrow message (sample extracts only, they run really long):

Code Select Expand


** PART 01 OF 01 **
************************
T/O MAJ 07
7913 FT
737-800 CFM56-7B26
TEMP 29C       ALT 29.88
WIND 090/10 MAG
     9KT HW 4KT XW
TOCG/TRIM 24.5/-.--
************************
DRY
************************
       *FLAPS 5*
      *BLEEDS ON*
     *ANTI-ICE OFF*
  ASSMD WT.  151.4
  ASSMD TMP. 47C
************************


Wide message:

Code Select Expand


** PART 01 OF 02 **
UAL154       OPERATIONAL FLIGHTPLAN PG 1/3 PRTD 18JUL16 2333.50
UAL154-18    19JUL16 PKWA/KWA   OUT 0059Z/1259L OFF 0112Z/1312L
N37293/3293  B738    PTSA/KSA   ON  0206Z/1206L IN  0212Z/1212L
WIND   190000 190600 01.02/00.08L     VRNT 1 RTNG 01 RLSE 01
RLSD IFR TO PTSA/KSA        CH58     
COLDEST ENRT TAT M5C (---) (N0705.5 E16524.2)  0.26/176NM
IA.PKWA-PTSA
FLIGHT IS NOT ENROUTE TERRAIN LIMITED
ACF90.09/ACF99.15 SAMPLE.189 AVGBDE.00 STDEV.04
ROUTING
DIST   400    WC  T9  DRAG/FF   0/+5.5  FECO +119 USD/1K
CI 35  USER   F300
FMS INIT LOAD                    TOW PARAMETERS
PKWA/PTSA                        R06 T30 A2991 W070/12 HW12 XW01
ARPT REF POINT N0843.2 E16743.9  F25 DRY AI/ANTI-ICE OFF
F300/M31 (P13) TROP F504         AC/BLEEDS ON  L6668
TOC NDJ+77NM                     LW PARAMETERS
ZFW  118900/132729L              R05 T29 A2985 W050/10 HW10 XW01
TOW  138913/152743L              F40 DRY AI/E AC/ON ENRT ICE
LW   132471/146300S              ACCR L5751
NO REDISPATCH POINT
INTENDED DEST
PTSA/KSA  01.02   6442




Hoppie