overweight error? 920381CB

Hello James,

Sorry about this issue with Econ Mode. Yes - it's possible that a restart of flight can change such things in unexpected ways. It would be my suggestion that Econ Mode flights should not be continued after simulator problems and restarts. Here is what the SPAACARS User Manual says:

<span >SPAACARS determines the Payload Weight based upon how you&rsquo;ve set your payload in your simulator.<span > </span>When initialized, SPAACARS counts all cargo/pax weight as 'payload', default to 1 pilot and all the rest of the payload to cargo.<span > </span>So, after starting SPAACARs <span > </span>you'll see that the default of 1 pilot and the rest of those FSX passengers as 'cargo'.<span > </span>You can move this as desired, but it will not affect the revenue generation for your aircraft (the new Econ Mod doesn&rsquo;t differentiate between passengers or cargo weight for revenue generation).<span > </span>Currently most capacities will generate max amount of profit so don&rsquo;t worry too much about payload.<span > </span>Over 50% of your max allowable weight (including fuel and payload) will generate full available profit.<br > <br ></span>So, while I can't be sure what exactly happened based on your photo, I can guess what might have happened. When SPAACARS starts a flight it fixes your cargo capacity as listed in the "Cargo Capacity" field on the main SPAACARS page. You can move that weight to PAX or Cargo in SPAACARS and it doesn't matter. If, at some point in your flight, the various weights of your aircraft change from what was originally initialized in SPAACARS, SPAACARS doesn't reinitialize things mid-flight and would very possibly see this as an increase of payload over that listed in the SPAACARS "Cargo Capacity" field. For instance, on a restart, you changed the fuel and/or payload from the original startup settings initialized by SPAACARS, those changes might allow acceptable weight in your sim, but not what would have been acceptable under the original configurations in SPAACARS.

I'd have to look at the SPAACARS code to figure out if SPAACARS will update that Cargo Capacity field if a restart occurs. If it does, then that restart would have resulted in a negative value in the Cargo Capacity field.

So...there's a lot of things that can get messed up with a restart during an econ flight - and adjusting fuel for the mid-flight might also have bad effects on the cargo capacity.

When you restarted, I'm guessing that SPAACARS was already logging the flight?

Otherwise it should update any changes to the simulator.

If you restarted sim during flight and SPAACARS was already logging, how did you restart the flight? ie. Did you manually restart the flight at its last location or did you use one of the "Reload Saved Flight" options (SPAACARS or FSUIPC auto-save of current flight). I would have thought that loading a saved flight would preserve the settings that affect the cargo capacity.

I'm not sure if this helps at all. If you wish to have a 're-do' on this flight (something I'm trying not to do with Econ Mode), I can change the flight number and allow you to re-fly that flight in Econ Mode. Changing the flight number at this point will place the flight on the Econ Practice page, keep the flight hours in your pilot's logbook with credited hours for the flight, and allow you to repeat the flight in Econ Mode. It appears you otherwise had a no-penalty flight for that flight other than this issue, so I think this re-fly option is reasonable in your case.

If in doubt about an Econ mode flight that you had to restart in the future, it's probably best to turn off the econ mode in settings before landing or change the flight number to a non-econ flight number before landing. These changes should still work mid-flight and allow the flight to continue as a regular flight but not an Econ Flight.

Hope this helps. Let me know if you want me to change the flight number or if you have more questions.

John

Thanks Jim,

Let me know if it occurs again and/or if you find a way to replicate the problem.

I'm happy you like the Econ Mode - it's been through many changes before the current one that allows variety of sims and aircraft, yet still provides an additional challenge for pilots. There's thoughts about possible changes for future Econ Flight groups, but it's limited when trying to keep the cross-platform compatibility and non-aircraft specific.

John

Jim,

Yes...both those items you mention are answered in your own post "I know you have to use something". Yes, I have to draw a line somewhere, and those are the lines. Other posts by current Econ flight pilots are also helpful, and I answer as best I can. Keeping in mind the myriad simulators, configurations, and addons, it's nearly impossible to set up something so universal, relatively easy to use, while offering a challenge for our pilots with results that have some comparative value. I think we've come pretty close here with the current version of Econ Module based on the results I've been seeing so far.

If it's just the passenger screams, you can turn off the SPAACARs sound setting. The gforce penalty is reasonable for unnecessary stress on the aircraft and possible damage to cargo. Other pilots, as well as I, have noted that weather addons that have increased turbulence settings can cause us g-force penalties with SPAACARS, so you're not the first - or the last to probably have those penalties. Additionally, I've noted that my Aerosoft CRJ700 is particularly sensitive on g-force when flaring for landing. So...these are just the nature of things that add to the challenge. The values used by SPAACARS were the best that I could find for realistic values on the Internet. Any combination of your sim settings, the aircraft you're flying and your weather addon settings can cause the problem and it may not be that SPAACARS g-force settings are improper.

The overweight penalty should almost never show up. There's no need to increase your payload beyond what the Capacity Field shows in SPAACARs, or come even close to maxing out your aircraft's cargo/pax capacity. SPAACARS doesn't penalize you for lesser cargo amounts until you've put your cargo below 50% of available capacity and have hardly any fuel as well.

That said, I also want to emphasize for the benefit of all pilots my aforementioned statement in this post, "results that have some comparative value". The important word here is "some". It's fun seeing how the other pilots are doing with their flights, and comparing your results while sharing stories of your challenging flights on the forum, but we must remember that, with the many variations of settings, simulators, aircraft and other addons, there can be no sweeping judgements about the skills of those pilots (real or simulated).

Remember, both that pilot flying with easy settings and a default aircraft and a pilot flying a complex payware aircraft with realistic settings are both displayed together. As is always the preference here at SPA - the primary challenge is to better your personal performance against your past performance. That is the closest comparison because you know if you're using the same settings, aircraft, etc. So - improvements in flight and aircraft handling are due to your improved flight skills, aircraft familiarity, etc.

John