Hub next leg flights gate not ready for a LOOOOONG time

[mjl1966]

Hub generate schedule.

Leg 1 - scheduled departure.

Leg 2 - 0000 for scheduled departure. (As created by hub creation routine)

FCDU ==> next leg.

Refuel, commit.  "Gate not ready 679 minutes"

Is this a known problem?

Why is is even looking for a gate ready time when departures is 0000?

[peter]

Hi MJL,

I may not fully understand the problem. When FSCaptain creates a schedule with a departure time of 0000, this corresponds to 12:00 AM midnight local time in your flight simulator (!) in the time zone of your departure airport (!!). If I recall correctly, the gates open by default about 40 minutes prior to departure, but you can set that time in your airline configuration. Let's say you depart from New York, KJFK (UTC-5). Then the gates would open at around 23:20 PM local time on the previous day of the flight. That is about 04:20 AM UTC on the day of the flight. Hence, if the gates are not ready for 679 minutes, that tells me that the time in your simulator would be 11 hours and 20 minutes before 23:30PM, i.e., around 12:10 PM local time. If you flew in real time (UTC time on your cell phone = UTC time in simulator) and live in, say, Halifax (UTC-4), you would have been at the gate around 1:10 PM local time.

Does that make sense in your case?

Cheers,
Peter

[mjl1966]

Well, no. If 0000 is, in fact, midnight, then the hub creation routine needs to be fixed. Any additional legs are assigned a departure time of 0000. This was done by the hub creation routine, not me.

Snip:

; This file is written by the FSCaptain Administrator and should only be hand-edited
; by those Captains with nerves of steel, and who have first made a backup of the original.
; Learn more at fscaptain.net/
;
Flight=103,KABQ,KPSP,1,1503,0,KPSP,KOGD,,,
Flight=104,KOGD,KPSP,1,1947,0,KPSP,KABQ,,,
Flight=105,KABQ,KGJT,1,1551,0,KDEN,,,,
Flight=106,KDEN,KGJT,1,1922,0,KABQ,,,,

[Travis]

Hi MJ,

I really need the full FCDU log (or logs) for this occurrence in order to see what was going on in the dispatch routines.

And I'll add a request for you to please email or post your airline's schedule as well.  Those "0"s that you've snipped are "Days of the week" with "0" referencing everyday.
------

While thinking about schedules, I'll mention that for a while I've wanted to apply some logic so that there are few-to-no late-night scheduled departures from small airports.

Then there are large airports (I'm thinking about KSJC) that have strict curfew hours.

Best,

[mjl1966]

FCDU_20230212_183754.log (276.64 KB)

Also interesting - dispatch text:

FLIGHT 123 KFLG (FLG) -- KGCN (GCN) -- ALT KPRC (PRC) 00-JAN-09 00:00Z ARRIVE 00:00Z

Seems to me the problem here is all about the 0000z times.

Reminder: schedule was created as part of a hub.  FSC admin did all this.

[mjl1966]

Ah ha!  It's the midnight barrier.  So the flight starts at 2303 and ends sometime after midnight.  FCDU doesn't account for the date change and thinks it's back in the morning of the PREVIOUS DAY... (or the starting day if you will.)  So it thinks it has 11 hours to wait for the next flight.

Moved the first leg back to 1500, flew that and all was well.

This is a real problem, though.  Since the FCDU can't handle a midnight flip, that limits my MST day... I have to make sure all flights are landed by 1700 MST.  No bueno. 

I'll have to use local time for my schedule, which is a bit tedious... GMT would be better.

[Travis]

It's not that.  No need to change from Zulu.

The FCDU is working fine, but it's receiving bad data which starts in the schedule file.  That's why you see "0000" on the FCDU for the departure and arrival times.

You went OUT at 2300z (scheduled for 2303z) and IN at 0022z.  You unloaded at 0024z and were ready to load for your next leg at 0026z.

But because of the 'bad data' the FCDU feels you were supposed to have gone out again at "0000"z meaning we judged you as late.  Your airline's "Gate Ready" starts at 20 minutes prior to departure.

I'm studying code to see what needs to happen.  It's part of the scheduler, but I can also add a guard against having a departure and arrival time of "0000".

For now, if you change your schedule so that subsequent legs do not have a departure and arrival time of "0000" - just blank out those textboxes - you won't experience a Gate Hold.  Gate Holds only occur on scheduled departures.

You must use the Admin to make these edits - editing the text file directly to do this will not work.

If you post or email me your schedule, I'd be happy to make those changes for now.

Best,

[Travis]

I may have fixes in place to both prevent 'hub-created schedules' from writing bad time data, as well as the Admin and FCDU from reading 'existing schedules' with bad time data.

I will be AFK (Away From Keyboard) for most of the next two days, so after my 'tonight' I will pick this up on my Norcal Thursday for testing.

1.8.4 Alpha 1 won't be released for at least six days.  And that's an early estimate....  

Best,

[mjl1966]

Hmmm... the challenge, is which airframe to you choose to calculate the block time necessary to sort the next departure? I though of (FIRST LEG DEPARTURE + BLOCK + 45 MINUTES) = NEW LEG DEPARTURE TIME, but the requires picking an airframe to calculate with.

If I fly it in a Caravan, that's going to take a lot longer than with my Q400...

One solution is to require an airframe lockdown for scheduled legs. But I know you don't like limiting options...

This is a head scratcher.

(a few minutes later...)

You could do it as part of the dispatch.  Something like:

OK, Tiger, here's your three-legged flight.  What crate are you taking?
Why, my 150, of course.
Alrighty then, let me calculate the great circle route at 110 KIAS (you wish) and add 45 minutes for each leg.  Here you go.  Enjoy those ten hours.

And then don't schedule any return flights until the next day... which I don't think you do anyway for multi-leg deals.

Yah?

Not exactly the airline schedule concept, but let's face it, the software that calculates those IRL is way more expensive than FSC!

[Travis]

Changing the Leg 2-Leg[n] schedule departure times is not really an option.
-----

Imagine you are supposed to be a passenger on ACME Airline Flight 123 Leg[2] to Leg[3] with an initial Departure Time of 1300z and Arrival Time of 1500z.

Then, instead of a SAAB 340, you hear that a Cessna 208 is your intended aircraft.  With a new Departure Time of 1700z and Arrival Time of 2200z.

You would probably start calling ACME Airline Customer Service with a MAJOR COMPLAINT.
-----

Our airline schedules are set, and an aircraft which fits the PAX/Payload/Block Time is assigned.  It's up to the Captain to Make The Flight.



Best,