Econ Mod and Update to Main SPA Page

PIlots:

I'm pleased to say that test data is now available for you to try out various flights using the Econ Module.

Your Econ Flight Detail is available by clicking on your Pilot ID listed in the "Arrivals area on the main page. This now provides a link to your econ data for that flight.

Note: This will allow you to see how the profit/loss effects your various flight options and you may suggest changes to the calculation to make it more realistic (I'm already thinking the revenue amounts per/flight are way too high). Understand that suggestions are limited to general changes of major items - revenue, direct- costs, indirect cost total. These are the primary factors that drive the results (indirect cost breakdown is merely a divided percentage of total indirect cost formula).

Also, this data will eventually be deleted when I'm satisfied that all changes necessary are made.

If you don't see any data listed in your link on the main page. Make sure you have the latest SPAACARS and that you have Econ Mode activated in the settings.

Let me know what you think.

Thanks,

John<br /><br /><!-- editby --><br /><br /><em>edited by: jer029, Apr 02, 2016 - 10:42 AM</em><!-- end editby -->

Thanks Steve,

Yes...I saw that on your flight and I haven't tried a bush passenger flight yet to see what I get. Was your fuel balanced for the flight (not carrying extra fuel)? I think the calculations result in higher cost the more your landing weight is, so you want to make sure your weight is primarily based on paying passenger or paid-for cargo.

I'll give it a try tomorrow. This still leaves an issue with postal flights that don't have a refueling stop at the various intermediate airports. I'm not yet sure how to handle that option, although - with bush cargo flights, as my first sample was, I think I had enough profit margin to make several hops and could have added some additional fuel. Now we're getting to the 'fine-tuning' which is nice.

I'm also slowly working on the main econ page that will eventually show accumulated totals for the econ users and allow you to page through your past flight data.

John<br /><br /><!-- editby --><br /><br /><em>edited by: jer029, Apr 02, 2016 - 04:09 PM</em><!-- end editby -->

Additional information:

I'm getting a bit ahead of myself and have made changes to the latest SPAACARS - I think the latest unversioned update was this morning.

The SPAACARS.exe file is dated 4/1/2016 at 3:40pm.

Anyway - the following changes to the program and site act as follows:

1. If you use econ mode (or even just landing rate) and your landing rate is -1000 FPM or greater (lesser), the "ask agent" flag appears in place of "Landed" on the Arrivals page. This is considered a crash and a comment appears on your econ flight detail. Eventually this will also bite into your profit margin depending on the extent of damages.

2. If your landing rate is between -500 and -1000, you still get the "landed" message on Arrivals page, but your passengers express their unhappiness.

3. If you like to make 'dives of death' on approach or lurch upwards, you can likewise upset your passengers. This will result in passengers screaming and, again, some comments regarding their flight experience.

4. If your landing is better than or equal to -200 FPM. comments indicate passengers are impressed with your landing.

On a final note - none of the econ data or even an identified 'crash' in econ (based on landing rate) affects your regular pirep filing for SPA. That will still file normally; the econ module operates independent of the SPA Pirep system we're all used to.

But feel free to test it all out now and play around a bit, as I said - all this current data will be deleted at some point in the near future.

Enjoy,

John


<br /><br /><!-- editby --><br /><br /><em>edited by: jer029, Apr 02, 2016 - 04:48 PM</em><!-- end editby -->

John,

OK, I've made a couple of bush/cargo flights in the DHC-2. I guess I get the general drift: the more cargo (or passengers) and the less fuel, the more positive the margin. To figure out the best equipment to choose for a given flight, one would have to know how both income and expense are related to the input variables. For example, what is "our" income for 1000 lb.-miles of cargo? What is our income per passenger mile? What are we paying for fuel?, etc. Presumably that's buried in the code (FS Passengers?) you're using to derive the numbers, but won't we at least need to know the scale factors?

Mike

Mike,

Not sure how much data to give so as not to violate proprietary nature of the original source provider. Although I've altered the code as necessary to tailor it to meet SPA needs, most of the calculations are not my own.



<br /><br /><!-- editby --><br /><br /><em>edited by: jer029, Apr 03, 2016 - 11:00 AM</em><!-- end editby -->

Yes, it's true that some of the costs may not make sense for the type of flight you fly, but those indirect costs - as you can see, are based on none of those 'incidentals' - all those indirect costs are a percentage of Indirect costs figure as calculated above. These calc's are for the most part not my own. I did create the 'cargo' indirect formula - adjusting the original to make a cargo flight profitable.

I think the main idea would not be to drill this down to the finest detail, but to have, as you stated Mike, "the general drift" ie. balance your fuel, carry a reasonable amount of cargo or passengers depending on flight type, and you will have a positive revenue flight.

The original data was designed to create a fictional econ data based on only knowledge of landing weight. I've made adjustments based on the additional information provided by SPAACARS.

So...while I don't mind trying to fix major issues - like flights that are impossible to be profitable, I think I would get frustrated trying to make every line-item realistic for every conceivable flight instance.

However...those of you so inclined can break out your calculators and crunch the numbers of the test flights and offer me your suggestions. I'll happily consider suggested changes to the calculations provided. I'm not sure we need to worry about things like "passenger food" costs though, as it's really only a derivative of the total 'indirect cost' that comes from the above-described calculation.

In reality, the only thing a pilot can adjust is landing weight (by adjusting the payload/fuel balance). The rest is just kind of 'fluff' I think.

John



<br /><br /><!-- editby --><br /><br /><em>edited by: jer029, Apr 02, 2016 - 05:44 PM</em><!-- end editby -->