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Creating Qantas (QF) OFP – fields, fuel etc. – questions & problems with PFPX


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Creating Qantas (QF) OFP – fields, fuel etc. – questions & problems with PFPX

Hi there,

Fantastic program, I have to say. I am still getting to grips with it but so far I have to say I really love it!

I am in the process of creating a Qantas OFP and have come across a few stumbling blocks I was hoping you chaps might be able to help me with.

  1. Date/time field format: some of these do not work as they are indicated in the Flight Plan Template Guide. For example, “<&Date[7]>” does not give “22-09-13” as indicated, it instead gives “22-Sep-13”. A similar problem occurs with “[21]” – it doesn’t give “May”, it gives a whole bunch of other stuff in a different format.

Are there known errors in the field formatting manual or faults in the fields?

  1. <&ATCFlightplan>”: I cant seem to get this to work by filling out the fields.

  1. Limiting long fields in width: is there a way to get long fields such as “<&ATCRouteFAA[1]>” and “<&VerticalProfile>” to limit their width to a number of characters and start a new line properly? I tried “<&ATCRouteFAA[1]:68>” and it sort of worked but each line below the first line was indented by one space for some reason – e.g.
    XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX
    XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX
    XXX.XXX

  1. Cost index number: is there any way to have a field that simply gives the cost index number – i.e. “50” rather than “CI-50”, for example? Or any function that would only show the first or last x number of characters of a field?

  1. Fuel and sections

    I may display what I am trying to achieve before asking the questions, to make things easier!

    FLIGHT 125.700 11.36
    APPROACH 2.000
    ARR ALLOWANCE 01.000 00.07
    S/HOLD AT WSSS 000.000 00.00
    DIVRSN TO 000.000 00.00
    S/HOLD AT 000.000 00.00
    V.F.R. 004.000 00.23
    F.F.R. 004.400 00.30
    CONTINGECNY 000.000 00.00
    TAXI 1.000
    MIN REQUIRED 138.200 12.36

    PLANNED ADDIT 000.000 00.00

    PLANNED FUEL 138.200 12.36


    I understand that this format of flight plan has quite a number more fuel fields than PFPX uses. I am trying to make do by using fields like “Ballast” for my “Approach” fuel, “MELCDLFuel” for my “Arrival Allowance” etc. Is there any way to get PFPX to calculate a time for fields such as MELCDL, Extra etc? At the moment I can’t see a way to ask it calculate the time of 2000kg worth of “Extra” fuel, for example.

    I have written manually in my OFP the words “APPROACH”, “S/HOLD AT WSSS” etc., and next to it I have the “<&XXXSection_Begin><&XXXFuel[10]:7><&XXXSection_End>. I am having two problems with this. Firstly, when that section is not planned, it does not start a new line after it. Instead it will do this, and not leave a line between them. It does leave a line if the section is present:

    S/HOLD AT WSSS DIVRSN TO...

    Any advice?

    Also, if a certain type of fuel is planned, is there any way to get its section to show zeroes for the quantity of fuel instead of not showing at all and being blank?

    Last question – is there a way to get all calculated fuels added up and shown as in “MIN REQUIRED” fuel in the example above – rather than a “Minimum Takeoff” field as with PFPX?

Thanks for any advice you can offer, sorry the questions are a bit technical. You have created a wonderful program and I look forward to many happy hours with it.

Kind regards,

Rudy


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I am trying to find a copy of a Qantas OFP and try and create that in PFPX........ if I find one I will have a go at creating the OFP and see if I can help .

Roy

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1. For me :-

Date[7] gives 23-09-13

Date[21] gives 231200

2. For me :-

<&ATCFlightPlan>

(FPL-CFG281-IS
-B763/H-SDE1FGHIJ1RWXYZ/LB1
-EDDF1200
-N0455F220 DF200 ULKI5U ULKIG Y180 RUDOT/N0458F230 Q762 LULAT/N0462F240 Z104
ROBON/N0453F220 UZ104 GESLO/N0471F320 UM624 BUB UL610 LAM UL179 CPT UL9 GAVGO
UL18 DIKAS UL180 LESLU DCT 51N010W/N0466F340 52N020W/M080F340 52N030W
51N040W/M080F360 49N050W DCT VIXUN/N0466F360 DCT ACK/N0466F380 DCT SWL DCT ISO
J121 CHS DCT TAY DCT CTY DCT CIGAR/M080F380 M215 PISAD/N0465F380 UM215 NUDIS
UL214 OTOMO OTOM1A
-MMUN1041 MMCZ
-PBN/A1B1C1D1L1O1S1 NAV/RNVD1E2A1 DOF/130923 REG/DAFPG
EET/EBUR0024 EGTT0049 EGGX0138 EISN0139 EGGX0211 CZQX0327 CZQM0557 KZBW0653
KZNY0729 KZDC0741 KZJX0828 KZMA0921 KZHU0938 MMFR0959 RVR/200 PER/D
RALT/EINN BIKF CYYT
RIF/CTY DCT PIE CYY6 KMIA
-E/1138)

3. Not that I've found (frustratingly) - if you find a solution - please let me know.

4.<&InitCruiseSpeed> Will show the Cost Index (I believe) if it's planned with one.

5. That's quite a complex fuel sheet - as you've identified - PFPX will struggle to populate it. There are strings like <&ExtraTime> - but not for MELCDL or Ballast (because these are numbers for the entire flight - not for a specific amount of burn). You could request that these get added by Christian.

You should move the tags outside of the S/HOLD AT WSSS - so its <&XXXSection_Begin>S\HOLD AT WSSS <&HoldFuel> <&HoldTIme>

<&XXXSection_End>

Tactical placement of the carriage return will add a new line when a section is added.

"Min Required" is <&MinReleaseFuel>

Hope that helps,

Chris.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Thought I'd chime in here.

In regards to this bit

You should move the tags outside of the S/HOLD AT WSSS - so its <&XXXSection_Begin>S\HOLD AT WSSS <&HoldFuel> <&HoldTIme>

<&XXXSection_End>

This is how I would see it in the OFP template.

<&XXXSection_Begin>S\HOLD AT <&To:4> <&HoldFuel> <&HoldTIme>

<&XXXSection_End>

Also with your Cost index number only I have asked Christian to have the option of number only and I've been told its on the to-do list.

Cheers,

Tim

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Hi there Doug & Tim.

Thanks for the advice. The downside of putting it in a section completely is that it will not show if the section is empty - ideally I would like it to show zeroes if empty, but I don't think this is possible.

In answer to your question Doug - I am getting there. I am just doing the ETP section at the moment - although I am having to make this up a bit as QF have a very unusual decision point section that is not very standard, and PFPX will not be able to replicate that as far as I know. This mainly revolves around the fact that QF (and other Australian carriers) infrequently plans for an alternate, so it is more about final decision points in-flight to continue called DPA, DPE DP1 etc which I have very limited info on. Also, the only twin-jet plans I have are short-distance 738 flights and one 763 flight YSSY/WSSS, which only has YSSY and YPDN as ETOPS airports, and as far as I can tell on the plan, no information as to the ETP between those two. As far as the decision points, you can achieve a similar "Decision Point" with PFPX by having an ETP between your destination and the airport you would go to along the way if for some reason you couldn't commit to your destination (e.g. WMKK and WSSS). That is probably clear as mud!

The fuel section as well will prove a bit annoying too as PFPX cannot have a section with zeros instead of a blank. Once I'm done with the ETP bit, which I'll have to be a bit creative unless someone else has some QF advice, I think I'll have a 747-400 template to use. I'll then do a 763 template (which is pretty similar) and a domestic 737 template which is totally different.

Anyway - sorry for the late reply. Will check a bit more often from now on!!

Cheers,

Rudy

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I ran into a similar problem creating a UAL (Sabre) format OFP Template. There are a few Fuel lines where I needed to default to zeros unless there was actually a contingency fuel ( or other )

I basically formatted the line with the default 00 PCT 00:00 for the time and fuel, then added the conditional Contingency fuel by repositioning the line to the beginning:

00 PCT <&ContingencyFuelSection_Begin><&#[1]:2><&ContingencyFuelCaption:12><&ContingencyFuelSection_End>| <&ContingencyTime:5>| <&ContingencyFuel:6>|

This will result in the following if there is no contingency fuel specified.

00 PCT | 00:00 | 0|

Note: the ContingencyFuel and Time will show as zero even if there is no contingency defined in the plan.

If , however, there IS a contingency fuel specified, the ContingencyFuelSection_Begin block will reposition the Line output to the beginning ( Actually can only position to col 2 due to a bug in PFPX formatting and results in the following:

10 PCT | 01:05 | 5000 |

I have asked for new formatting options that would allow us to specify the length from the Right aligh such that we could truncate a line likes CI-14 or Flaps 30 to only show the right N (2 ) characters.

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Interesting, Bruce! It's 3:30am here so I'm going to re-read that in a few hours when my brain is awake!! Thanks! Also - does anyone know - I know there is a field for burn adjustment weight amount in the OFP template guide - but I cannot find anywhere in PFPX where you can change it to anything other than 4000kg in weight - does anyone know where this might be? I would prefer it to give me an adjustment per 1000kg, not 4000kg.

Cheers,

Rudy

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