Mklemme

Hi all, In case you haven't come across it already, this ICAO presentation gives a very detailed overview of the EDTO planning process. Slide 11 talks about the Reference Weight, which is meant to be a conservative estimate of the expected weight at the relative critical point. https://www.icao.int/WACAF/Documents/Meetings/2019/EDTO/EDTO Module 5 - Flight Operations Considerations.pdf Hope it's helpful, Michael.

The Sig Wx Chart is generally used for planning purposes, is a forecast and is issued around 16-18 hours before its validity time. So the chart valid at 12Z on a particular date will have been issued c. 18Z the previous day. SIGMETs are actual advisories of active or expected occurrence of potentially hazardous weather and as noted by Stephen have a much shorter time span of out to 4 hr. SIGMETs can be thought of as updates to what the Sig Wx chart has forecast. Thus if SIGMET conditions forecast on the Sig Wx chart are still expected to occur, then nearer the validity time a SIGMET will be issued for these conditions but with more precise information as to severity, location, movement etc; conversely if SIGMET conditions forecast on the Sig Wx chart are later not expected to occur then no SIGMET will be issued. Also note that there are differences between what Sig Wx charts depict v. what SIGMETs are issued for (eg Sig Wx charts will depict areas of moderate or severe icing and turbulence whereas SIGMETs only cover severe conditions). To the OP's question, the fact that the SIGMETs cover a much smaller area (bottom pix) than what is depicted on the Sig Wx chart (top pix) probably means that the actual CB/TS conditions forecast in the Sig Wx chart turned out to be much more localized and SIGMETs were only issued for those specific areas (assumes the two pix are relating to similar time frames). It could also be a PFPX depiction issue (ie more SIGMETs were actually issued but weren't depicted on the PFPX map) but this could only be verified by comparing with a third-party provider such as Sky Vector or one of the weather agency websites. In my experience, depiction of SIGMETs in PFPX is fairly spotty, but perhaps it's something to do with my setup.

I believe another key difference between PFPX and Simbrief for long haul flight planning is that PFPX will (usually!) generate a wind-optimized routing to minimize fuel burn whereas I think routes generated by Simbrief are either (1) what routings prior users have used for the city-pair in question or (2) Simbrief's own in-built route planner which essentially generates great-circle (least distance) routings independent of wind conditions. Depending on the location of the jet stream relative to the GC, this can be advantageous for longer haul oceanic flights particularly where no organized tracks exist or where one wants to select the ' best' track. This level of detail of course may not be all that important to each individual user.

Hi Stephen and Tom, many thanks for your super speedy and helpful feedback!

Hi all, I currently have v2.03 installed and would like to update to v2.04. What is the best recommended upgrade process - ie run the v2.04 executable over the installed v2.03 or uninstall 2.03 first and then run the 2.04.exe; In either case which PFPX folders should I back up to retain existing aircraft, templates, navdata, etc with v2.04; and Will my existing server subscription continue to be valid after I upgrade. Many thanks for your input. Cheers, Michael.

This time with missing picture!

Hello Mykyta and Duarte, I was also interested in the answer to this question regarding the higher fuel consumption vs. the PFPX estimate. I had a quick look at the detailed information Duarte provided for the flight and note the following which might help explain the variance. I plotted the fuel balance by waypoint for the actual flight and PFPX estimate (see chart below). The chart shows the fuel burn up to KOMUT is pretty close. Thereafter you can see actual fuel burn increases viz. PFPX. I noticed in the PFPX OFP that the mach speed is .78 at TABAX and KOMUT, but then it starts to decrease to .74 by TIMTO. If the actual flight was flown at constant .78 this could explain the increased fuel burn after KOMUT. It's could also be a conversion issue with how Cost Index 35 translates to TAS/M# in the Aerosoft FMC logic v. what's in the PFPX profile. The average fuel burn (ie kg/hr) for the cruise portion of the flight was around 25% higher than predicted by PFPX under similar weight and OAT conditions. Other than the speed issue noted above, it may be that the Aerosoft bus fuel burn is not modeled so accurately (ie as a function of weight, OAT, etc). I also noticed that the actual flight commenced descent well before the TOD point in PFPX (ie at TIMTO the actual flight was at FL252 whereas in PFPX it was still in cruise at FL380 at this point). Also the flight log shows a very strong wind of 101kts at TIMTO which is higher than the PFPX profile. A longer, slower descent would add to the fuel usage especially if there was more low level maneuvering than what PFPX assumes for the descent profile. Anyway, hope this is helpful in the analysis! Kind regards, Michael.

Hi Mykyta, Thank you! Really appreciate your efforts in making these profiles. Cheers, Michael.

Hi Mykyta, thanks, I hadn't spotted the other thread regarding this topic. It seems the developers are aware of the issue so will await their fix. Regards Michael.

Hi Mykyta, Many thanks for the very detailed additional aircraft profiles for PFPX, especially the latest ones for the 747-400. However, I have a question: do your profiles adjust for non-ISA conditions? I just planned a flight from KSFO-EDDF using your 747-400 PW4056 profile with a M.84 cruise, but I noticed in the OFP printout that the TAS at FL390 remained constant at 482 knots although the temperature deviations at this cruise altitude ranged from ISA+15 to ISA-1 so there should have been some variation in TAS (typically 1k change per 1 degree deviation from ISA). Thanks again, Michael.