744 KLAX To VHHH Need Fuel Stop?

[Guest B1900 Mech]

Hi all!:-) I went to the Cathay Pacific website,and found that flt. # 881 was operating out of LA to HK non stop with all seats filled. Now I don't know how much cargo they had,but when I attempted this flight with full fuel.I had to make a fuel stop at Taipei Airport, Taiwan. The avg wind's aloft for the flight were headwinds around 50 kts. Do the CF6's I have burn more fuel than the RB211's on Cathy's? Thank's from Jim EDIT- Here is the route, VTU5 RZS LIBBO BRINY ALCOA CEPAS COBAD 4200N 14000W 4700N 15000W 4900N 16000W 4900N 17000W 4800N 18000E 4700N 17000E 4400N 16000E CALMA OTR5 PABBA A590 KAGIS A590 MJE A1 KAZAN A1 BULAN A1 APU MKG A1 ELATO.

[Guest B1900 Mech]

Upon reviewing this,http://flightaware.com/live/flight/CPA881 It looks like they are staying at FL300, I guess I should not have step climbed ? My cost index was 150.

[744pilot 0]

Personaly, I think they didn't take any cargo with them.Cost Index various between airlines and I think CX881 used LRC mode instad of ECON spd.If you make step climbs you normaly use less fuel but if there is a Jetstream against you, you just stay at your FL. in this case FL300.Did you use RW WX?

[markadeane 272]

Hi Jim,Firstly, do you have a fuel planner for the 747-400? There are freeware ones on AVSIM that are useful at giving a rough estimate of fuel required.We'd need to see your aircraft loadout to determine a few relevant factors. Pax load, cargo load, fuel load in particular.The short answer is that you should be able to do this flight easily without a fuel stop, provided you loaded the aircraft properly. However if you put a bum in every seat and an LD3 container in every cargo spot, then the maximum amount of fuel you could safely carry would NOT be enough to get there.Post some more info and we'll step through it!

[Guest B1900 Mech]

Thank's for the replys, Yes I have Active Sky 6, My ZFW was 466.7,fuel 382.8 for a GW of 849.5.

[markadeane 272]

Ok Jim, when I get home I'll look at this. Whether active sky 6 has anything to do with it I can't say as I don't own it.Come to think of it, a 50 knot headwind might have made it a bit marginal. I'd need to put it through a few calcs to see.

[Guest B1900 Mech]

Thank's again.I forgot, I use FSNav for the fuel calc's:-)

[Guest shogun007]

By my calulations you should be able to do it no problems.Zero Fuel Weight: 235200kgsFuel: 162000kgsBrakes release weight : 397210kgs.With a cost index of 100, fixed reserves of 6.5 ton and an initial cruise level of FL300. You should have well over 10 ton to spare on arrival at VHHH.If the weather was Tempo or Inter at the destination you still have another 10 ton of fuel you can uplift (and obviously drop 10 ton of cargo.Even a Cost Index of 500 won't make that much of a change to your fuel burn.I would suggest that maybe your initial cruise level or overall cruising levels were too high.You should plan to be no more than 2000ft above or below your Optimum altitude at any time (this provides approx 1.5 load factor or better buffet margin)You should plan to fly 2000ft above Optimum, and maintain that level until 2000ft below Optimum then commence your step climb to the next level. The FMC will predict a step climb point based on your entered wind data (which we can't do in this sim for a climb, only for descent which is not applicable. You should commence your step climb as close to as practiable to the step climb point. Hope this sheds some light on why you didn't make it to VHHH in one go. Regards Steve 744 Co Pilot

[Guest Hawkeyeted]

>The FMC will predict a step climb point based on your entered>wind data (which we can't do in this sim for a climb, only for>descent which is not applicable. You should commence your step>climb as close to as practiable to the step climb point.Steve,You can enter enroute winds into the FMC, as well as descent winds (via the VNAV DESC page).That said, if you use AS.6, you can get significantly better fuel predictions and ETA's based on the winds aloft data provided.

[Guest JTH]

Here's a semi-related question.The original post mentioned a fuel stop. Can the 744 FMC (or a real life FMC for that matter) be programmed to accept a fuel stop? If not, how would it work - do you just set the fuel stop airport as your destination, then when you're on the ground make a new flightplan with the final airport as your new destination?Thanks in advance...

[Guest Robin.B]

You can use RTE1 for the inital flightplan and RTE2 from the Fuelstop to the final destination.

[CPA156 0]

During the height of winter 1 or 2 out of the 3 CX LAX-HKG flights had to divert due to strong headwinds. A thing people should know is CX Cost Indexes vary from every aircraft. Except from when using high speed cruise (M0.86). I am told by pilots they use CI250 when trying to gain some distance.

[michal 44]

Real Cathay Pacific has an advantage over you - they have access to fancy software by Jeppesen that is able to find the most wind-optimal route for them. Once you have access to their real flight plan it is important to fly in exactly the same weather (wind) or you can get clobbered. Michael J.http://www.precisionmanuals.com/images/forum/pmdg_744F.jpghttp://sales.hifisim.com/pub-download/asv6-banner-beta.jpg

[CPA156 0]

I think CX uses dispatch software from Sabre Airline Solutions which chooses all the routes and does the CFP Flightplans

[horace 3]

Hi,also remember that the counts in the PMDG747 load manager are 426 passengers in tripple class configuration! Thats quiet a lot ...an airline like cathay pacific has either 345 seats or 383 in their 747s. United has 347 seats and I did KORD-VHHH in the sim - a 7000nm ride without fuel problems. So if you count in about 100 pax less in the load manager it's a big difference in fuel consumption an will increase the range of the PMDG bird due to less ZFW and the ability of loading more fuel.