"Day in the Life Challenge - Summer 2018"

[Scott Medeiros]

Day in the Life Challenge - Summer 2018

Spreadsheet can be viewed here...https://drive.google.com/open?id=17vmYT ... -6MXimdxFm

Major Airline Pilot
Leg 1: KDEN-KSAN
Depart: 08:15 Arrive: 10:26
Leg 2: KSAN-KSLC
Depart: 11:10 Arrive: 13:09
Leg 3: KSLC-KLAS
Depart: 13:50 Arrive: 15:13
Leg 4: KLAS-KPDX
Depart: 15:56 Arrive: 18:08

Regional Airline Pilot
Leg 1: KSEA-KPSC
Depart: 09:40 Arrive: 10:32
Leg 2: KPSC-KSEA
Depart: 11:14 Arrive: 12:12
Leg 3: KSEA-KMFR
Depart: 13:33 Arrive: 14:58
Leg 4: KMFR-KSFO
Depart: 15:26 Arrive: 16:45
Leg 5: KSFO-KBUR
Depart: 17:25 Arrive: 18:45
Leg 6: KBUR-KSFO
Depart: 19:22 Arrive: 20:43

Charter Pilot
Leg 1: KAPA-KJAC
Depart: 08:30 Arrive: 09:36
Leg 2: KJAC-KBOI
Depart: 10:00 Arrive: 10:45
Leg 3: KBOI-KMRY
Depart: 11:05 Arrive: 12:18
Leg 4: KMRY-KSNA
Depart: 12:40 Arrive: 13:34
Leg 5: KSNA-KABQ
Depart: 14:30 Arrive: 17:15
Leg 6: KABQ-KELP
Depart: 17:35 Arrive: 18:35
Leg 7: KELP-KAPA
Depart: 19:00 Arrive: 20:30


So for those who are interested here are the rules:

1. This is a 1 day, 1 sitting, real time simulation of a day of a commercial pilot. There's no pausing the clock or coming back tomorrow. Need a lunch break? Plan accordingly as some turn times are shorter than others, don't forget you'll need to preflight in that time as well.
Exception: If you have a sim crash you may "rewind the clock" back to either a save point you have made or the start of the flight leg.
2. You must depart each airport, land at each airport. You are not required to strictly stay to the schedule, but you must spend the scheduled amount of time on the ground for the de-planing and boarding process.
3. For checking purposes you must log each flight on peaware to get credit.
4. There are no restrictions on the airplane you use, but it must be an airplane that could do this schedule in 9 hours of flight time and must be able to safely operate at each airport. The schedules were created using transport category jet schedules. You may swap airplanes along the way.
5. The actual start time doesn't matter (simply adjust the times on the schedule above).
6. The part 121 duty day limit for the "Major Airline Pilot" scenario is 13 hours, for the "Regional Airline Pilot" scenario it is only 12 hours due to 6 legs of flying. Both duty days can be extended by 2 hours (to a limit of 15 (major), 14 hours (regional)) due to issues along the way. You must complete the sequence in 15 or 14 hours respectively. The sequence starts when you start to "pre flight the plane" and ends when you engage the parking brake at the gate in PDX (Major Airline Pilot) or SFO (Regional Airline Pilot).
7. Part 135 (Charter operations) duty limit is 14 hours. You must complete the sequence in 14 hours. The sequence starts when you start to "pre flight the plane" and ends when you engage the parking brake at the FBO back in APA.
8. Due to the length and time constraints people have there is no requirement to do all flights during PE operating hours, however at least 4 must be 100% completed during PE operating hours.
9. Weather is not defined but should be realistic to a weather pattern that could happen (no 100 knot tailwinds every leg).
10. The in game time you use does not matter, but once set should not be changed and allowed to normally progress.

Successful pilots get a reward of value yet to be determined (but likely to be in the 0-0$ range)

Optional Hard Code Mode:

For those who want a little more realism add the following rules:

1. You must complete the sequence in 9 hours of flight time with the following exception (the 9 hour flight limit is a hard limit, you can't extend it like the duty day with the limited exception below).
- Exception: If at KLAS/KBUR the total flight time to that point + your reasonably scheduled flight time to KPDX/KSFO is under 9 hours you may depart. If you end up flying over 9 hours due to enroute delays to KPDX/KSFO this does not count as a violation of this rule.
2. You may not depart early. You must depart at the times listed (adjusted to your start time).
3. Real world weather must be used
-Exception: If the weather is below minimums you may raise the weather to be at minimums.

Optional Iron Man Mode:

1 last mode for those who want 100% realism. This mode just adds a couple more rules:

1. You must start your preflight between 0700-1259 local time. FAA duty limits depend on when your day starts. The duty rules listed above assume you start between these times, so start between these times.
2. Complete the entire sequence during operating hours.
Note: Functionally this means you must start between 0730-1100 Pacific.
Exception: If due to your location you cannot comply with rules 1 and 2, rule 2 takes priority and you can ignore rule 1.
3. Only use 1 type of airplane. Note airplanes that are covered under 1 type rating may be swapped into (for example fly a CRJ2 and CRJ7, or a B757 and B767)
4. At KLAS (Major Airline Pilot) or KSFO (Regional Pilot) you must "swap airplanes". This means you need to make the airplane cold and dark and then preflight it again. For those of you using rule 3 to use 2 different models of aircraft you must swap into model 2.
5. Run your simulator time to match real world time.
6. Reference excel spreadsheet "Iron man rules" for additional easter eggs you may experience during your day.

To get credit reply to this post with the following:
1. Peaware links to your flights.
2. Total duty day
3. Departure and arrival times for each flight.
4. Total flight time (this is not required to be under 9 hours)
5. Anything else you want to note
6. What mode you accomplished (Regular, Hard Core, or Iron Man).

Good Luck, we're all counting on you!

[MitLogue1]

1.png (8.09 KiB) Viewed 19047 times

Completed challenge on July 9th 2018.

1. Peaware links to your flights.
http://peaware.pilotedge.net/flight.cfm?id=279662
http://peaware.pilotedge.net/flight.cfm?id=279679
http://peaware.pilotedge.net/flight.cfm?id=279693
http://peaware.pilotedge.net/flight.cfm?id=279707

2. Total duty day
Started preflight at 1230 central time.
Ended after plane was all shut down at 2225 central time.

3. Departure and arrival times for each flight.

See photo as post would not keep the format.

4. Total flight time (this is not required to be under 9 hours)
7:13

5. Anything else you want to note
Came way to close to overspeed way to many times on the last leg. Regional should be fun with no autopilot at all on the last leg.
40+ knot tailwind on last leg.
Used Google's random number generator to determine payload for each flight.
Should have scheduled about 5 minutes more at the gates bewteen flights 1-3...was pushing it and made a simple, not deadly, mistake that could have been avoided.
My name is Mitchell and I have an addiction, flight sim.

6. What mode you accomplished (Regular, Hard Core, or Iron Man).
Iron Man (95% positive I hit all requirements for this)

[RISCfuture]

My Ironman Major Airline Pilot flights:

Code: Select all

LEG OUT  OFF  ON   IN   BLK  FLT
1   1515 1531 1725 1729 0214 0153 http://peaware.pilotedge.net/flight.cfm?id=508487
2   1810 1822 1954 1958 0148 0131 http://peaware.pilotedge.net/flight.cfm?id=508521
3   2050 2101 2200 2207 0116 0058 http://peaware.pilotedge.net/flight.cfm?id=508567
4   2256 2306 0101 0106 0210 0155 http://peaware.pilotedge.net/flight.cfm?id=508610
---------------------------------
TOTAL                   0728 0617

I flew whatever cost index was calculated to get me to the arrival point on time (not exceeding M0.8), except where the cost index was below the Southwest Airlines econ cost index (36), in which case I flew CI36.

De-rotated the nose too quickly on landing #2, resulting in an unbalanced nose gear. Who needs to pre-plan inop A/T when you can just create your own failures in flight!

[RISCfuture]

My Ironman Charter Pilot flights:

Code: Select all

LEG OUT  OFF  ON   IN   BLK  FLT  LINK
1   1836 1839 1948 1950 0114 0059 http://peaware.pilotedge.net/flight.cfm?id=569753
2   2013 2015 2102 2104 0054 0047 http://peaware.pilotedge.net/flight.cfm?id=569801
3   2131 2135 2300 2302 0131 0125 http://peaware.pilotedge.net/flight.cfm?id=569841 
4   2325 2331 0029 0031 0106 0058 http://peaware.pilotedge.net/flight.cfm?id=569879
5   0109 0112 0237 0240 0131 0125 (lost to DST bug)
6   0323 0326 0407 0410 0047 0041 http://peaware.pilotedge.net/flight.cfm?id=569934
7   0446 0450 0608 0610 0124 0118 http://peaware.pilotedge.net/flight.cfm?id=569962
---------------------------------
TOTALS                  0827 0733

Notes from the flight:

• I flew in the Hot Start! CL650
• Everything was rolexed +2 hours so I could enjoy my weekend sleep-in.
• The first four legs are impossible for the CL650 to do at M0.84, its max cruise speed, if you treat the out/in times as block times. So I treated them as off/on times. That is why my departure times are sometimes earlier than the scheduled; I left so that my Off time would be around the scheduled Out time.
• I was behind schedule even for my first leg (the CL650 first-flight-of-the-day checks take a long time...) and I got up to an hour behind schedule until I could make it up on that ridiculously slow leg to ABQ. So the fact that my passengers for leg 3 were 20 minutes late was moot -- I was even later!
• I planned a different W&B and cargo load for each leg, presuming I was taking different passengers each time. I also used fuel pricing and leg times to figure the best cruise speeds for each leg -- did I want to tanker cheap fuel or go with IFR mins? Did I want to fly faster or slower? All that meticulous planning ended up being moot, however, since like I said I was behind schedule from minute one. So I ended up doing all but the last 2 legs at min weight and max speed.

[intelfx]

By complete accident, I flew my (Ironman) Charter Pilot flights on the same day, same time (I started two hours earlier) and in the same plane as Tim right above.

Stealing Tim's table formatting:

Code: Select all

LEG ADEP ADES OUT  OFF  ON   IN   BLK  FLT  LINK
-   -    -    1600 -    -    -    -    -
1   KAPA KJAC 1648 1704 1814 1820 0132 0110 http://peaware.pilotedge.net/flight.cfm?id=569729
2   KJAC KBOI 1844 1852 1944 1950 0106 0052 http://peaware.pilotedge.net/flight.cfm?id=569767
3   KBOI KMRY 2013 2022 2145 2148 0132 0123 http://peaware.pilotedge.net/flight.cfm?id=569806
4   KMRY KSNA 2215 2227 2321 2326 0111 0054 http://peaware.pilotedge.net/flight.cfm?id=569862
5   KSNA KABQ 0030 0040 0201 0205 0135 0121 (lost)
6   KABQ KELP 0243 0252 0330 0335 0052 0038 http://peaware.pilotedge.net/flight.cfm?id=569939
7   KELP KAPA 0400 0410 0537 0541 0141 0127 http://peaware.pilotedge.net/flight.cfm?id=569957
-   -    -    -    -    -    0550 -    -

Total block time: 09:29
Total duty time:  13:50

Notes:

• The challenge rules are a mess. Originally, I tried to follow the rules from this forum post. It's only by the end of my 4th leg it was brought to my attention that there are more elaborate rules outlined in the excel spreadsheet, and only by the end of the challenge I found out about this forum post.
• For the same reason, I did not try to actually follow the schedule — the rules described in the post I linked say that you have to wait the exact amount of time on each turnaround (instead of just departing not earlier than scheduled time + initial offset, and spending not less than 20 minutes at the terminal), so there was no "making up for the lost time" on turnarounds for me.
• For the same reason, I did the "pax 20 minutes late" on 6th leg (extra 20 min delay on the ground at ABQ) instead of 3rd.
• For the same reason, I did not originally plan for the Ironman level, but I think that what I did still qualifies.
• All legs were flown at max cruise, min fuel and with payload randomized.

[RISCfuture]

And with the Regional Pilot challenge complete to Ironman standards, I am now a triple Ironman!

Code: Select all

LEG OUT  OFF  ON   IN   BLK  FLT
---------------------------------
1   1728 1740 1820 1825 0053 0040 http://peaware.pilotedge.net/flight.cfm?id=590920
2   1913 1925 2010 2015 0102 0045 http://peaware.pilotedge.net/flight.cfm?id=590948
3   2133 2142 2252 2257 0124 0110 http://peaware.pilotedge.net/flight.cfm?id=590974
4   2326 2337 0044 0051 0125 0107 http://peaware.pilotedge.net/flight.cfm?id=591002
5   0126 0142 0250 0252 0126 0107 http://peaware.pilotedge.net/flight.cfm?id=591021
6   0322 0337 0439 0444 0122 0102 http://peaware.pilotedge.net/flight.cfm?id=591052
---------------------------------
TOTALS                  0732 0551

Notes

• Everything flown in the Majestic Q400 with FS2Crew ... having a virtual copilot was very handy of the last leg, without autopilot.
• All departure times shifted by an hour.
• I flight-planned my flights to use intermediate speed cruise (ISC), but found that max cruise was necessary to make some of the gate times in the later flights. Good thing I had extra fuel.
• I used the MJC84 System Panel to actually INOP the A/P instead of just faking it by not using it. To my dismay, I learned that also INOPs the flight director. So I hand flew the last leg raw data.
• I got deviations on the SID and STAR into/out of SEA because they both terminate in a "fly heading" leg, which the Q400 FMS had trouble with. The raw data indications were correct, but the steering commands to the F/D were wrong. I had to disable the A/P, fly it back to where it should be, and re-engage the A/P in heading select.
• The Q400 VNAV is notoriously difficult to get right, so I was too high on the ROKKR arrival into KBUR, but I fixed it shortly afterwards. All my other VPATH descents were good, despite the airplane's best efforts to screw me.
• The Q400 has enviable takeoff and landing performance. Even at MFR, I was able to do a flaps 5 takeoff / flaps 15 landing with up to the max takeoff/landing weight.

[Scott Medeiros]

Well done Stretch!