Econ Mod and Update to Main SPA Page

John,

OK, I see that the internal variables are complicated (particularly as I don't know how they are defined), and we surely wouldn't want get crosswise with the vendor. I also see that a fair fraction of the costs are distributed overhead (i.e. indirect costs), which neither the dispatcher nor the pilot can control. I also see that for a bush/cargo flight (admittedly not typical) the fuel costs are a negligible fraction of the direct costs. So other than maximizing cargo/passenger load for a given flight, is there anything else the individual pilot can control in planning for his flight?

Mike

Mike,

I realized I left some of the numbers of my original post and have edited it, so take another look.

As for the answer to your question - I'm not sure - I've hardly looked into the calcs and the impact on flights, as I've only flew a few and you see the same complex formula I see. All I did to alter was replace some fabrication (like passengers) to match actual passenger based on SPAACARs and fuel used to be actual fuel burned. I then fiddled with the indirect cost formula to make cargo flights profitable too.

I'll probably delete the detail listed above so, if you or Steve wish to fiddle further with the formulas, you may wish to copy that to your system.

Most of my time thus far was tailoring the code to work on our site and integrating it into our existing pirep code and updating the database to accommodate it. Then, writing the code to display it in various forms so that we might analyze the results.

Like I responded to Steve, I haven't yet flown a Bush Pax flight yet to try it and come up with other solutions if it can be profitable.

My recommendation as to what pilots can do is as follows:

Adjust your cargo (if cargo flight) or pax count (if pax flight) to be a full flight. This will most likely require you to adjust your fuel downward - balancing required fuel for trip with amount of payload you can carry.

Also remember that SPAACARS counts all cargo/pax weight as 'payload', default to 1 pilot and all the rest of the payload to cargo. So....if it's a cargo flight, in FSX fill up those passenger seats too - this will let you get max payload while maintaining balance of the aircraft. Then, start SPAACARs and you'll see that the default of 1 pilot and the rest of those FSX passengers as 'cargo'.

With a pax flight, move as much to pax in SPAACARS as possible, as number of pax is a real number taken from SPAACARS and used in revenue as shown in the above post.

Finally - dump those tanks of excess fuel. That's all extra landing weight that will cost you - and it's not just the landing fees. As you can see - Landing Weight is used in a number of other calcs, so you can save in multiple areas be getting rid of excess weight that isn't needed in the form of fuel to burn or get to an alternate, and revenue-generating pax or cargo.

Hope this helps.

John<br /><br /><!-- editby --><br /><br /><em>edited by: jer029, Apr 02, 2016 - 06:33 PM</em><!-- end editby -->