Not really a major in this situation Ben as we were relatively light and had plenty of runway and a light autobrake setting.You dont get that squat down feeling which soon lets you know the boards havent come up if you didnt notice it on touchdown. We had a reverser that was locked out due to a maintenance problem so we initially distracted making sure all the REV indications were correct and that only symmetrical REV was uesd.CheersSteve

I hope you had a good flight Steve. I didn't notice this post until now, so I didn't get a chance to track you.I'm looking foward to anything you can post. Not that I don't always, but now more then normal. ;)

Well the flight over was pretty much as expected. Luckily we had a GE powered aircraft. In fact it was the latest one in the fleet.The flight was delayed due ATC slot times associated with weather in the area (CB's) slowing departures and arrivals.Our inital departure time was 1515 GMT. Slot time was 1615. This improved and we eventually got airborne at 1554. Details as follows:Route:EGLL DIRECT WOBUN WELIN UN57 POL UN601 MARGO UN590 NINEX UP59 BALIX N62W20 N64W30 N65W40 KAGLEY TEFFO SCAH YWG DIK CZI OCS J107 HEC DIRECT LAXFILED ATC ALTN KFAT (FRESNO)AVERAGE WIND COMPONENT M018 TOTAL DIST/TIME 4796/1014 EQUIV STILL AIR DISTANCE 4978NMENROUTE ALTS PRESTWICK, KEFLAVIK, WINNIPEGRTE PROFILE;INITIAL FL320 AT 64N30W FL340 AT 65N50W FL360 AT YWG FL 380 AT OCS FL400ZFW 234996 KGTOTAL FUEL LOADED 123000 KGTAXI FUEL 1200 KG ALLOWED FOR.TAKEOFF WEIGHT 356796 KGEGLL ATIS MIKEDEPART RWY 27L WIND 200/10 VARYING BETWEEN 160/240VIS 10 KMTEMP 23 CELCIUSQNH 1015WINDSHEAR REPORTEDTAKE OFF PERFORMANCEMAX RWY LIMIT 396.7 TONNES based on an occasional 3 kt tailwind.Because of the reported windshear we used max TO thrust (No derated TO)PACKS ON CORRECTION (STANDARD 7000KG) GAVE A MAX PACKS ON TOW OF 389.7 TONNEV1 149 (151 less 2 kts for downwind component)VR 161V2 174FLAP 20 STAB 22% MAC 6.3 UNITSN1 TO THRUST 105.73 ENG PITCH ATTITUDE 13 DEGREESATC CLEARANCECLEARED KLAX WOBUN 2G DEPARTURE SQUAWK 5424FUEL CALCS (KG)A TO B 106962 (INCLUDES 2.4 % PERFORMANCE DETERIORATION ALLOW A/C SPECIFIC)CONTINGENCY FUEL 2 % 2156EGLL DEP ALLOW 819 (800 PLUS 2.4 % PDA)INST APP KLAX 1331 (1300 PLUS 2.4 % PDA)DIV TO KFAT 6160RESERVE 30 MIN 3838TOTAL PLANNED FUEL 121266ETP 2 & 3 ENG PLUS 4 ENG DEPRESS FUEL NOT LIMITING.FMCCOST INDEX 100CRUIS ALT 320STEP CLIMB 1000ZFW 235.0RESERVE 10.0THRUST LIM PAGE CLB 1 (NO DERATE)TO PAGE FLAP/ACCEL ALT20/15003 ENG ACCEL ALT1500CLB THRUST 1500VSPEEDS AS ABOVESTAB 23% SHOULD GIVE 6.3 UNITSVNAV DESCENT WINDSFL290 248/026FL210 252/018 13000 236/0137000 238/006We used 1300kg prior to TO so departure fuel was 121600 KG.TO roll started 1554z. TO was conducted with LNAV and VNAV armed. 6000 was set in the MCP ALT as departure has 6000ft hold down.To limit the turn radius F10 was maintained and a speed 200 kts util the turn to WOBUN was complete (Noise abatement monitors).Auto pilot was engaged early so both pilots could actively monitor the ATC Freq and instructions. Prior to reaching 6000ft we got radar vectors and maintained for most of the remaining UK domestic airspace. When in the cruise an oceanic clearance was obtained from Shanwick via the ACARS system.Reached assigned Oceanic crossing altitude of FL340 by BALIX. From Shanwick we were handed over to Iceland. 1949z climbed FL350. From Iceland handed over to Montreal. We did cut a small corner of Gander airspace before Montreal (about 70 miles). 2304z climbed FL380. When in US airspace we climbed to FL400 at 0105z to get over weather. Opt was FL385.The flight went well with about 5 min lost by the time we commenced descent which was showing as 0151z. This was 20 miles before Hector.RTE 1 was loaded with the CIVET 5 arrival HEC transition for RWY 25L. RTE 2 was loaded with CIVET 5 HEC trans and RWY 24R. We then had both arrival prospects covered. If we were cleared for 24R all we had to do was activate and execute RTE 2.Descent SPD was .853/278 SPD TRANS 240/10000KLAX ATIS Bravo250/1410 SMFew 150023 degrees29.94Initial descent was to FL280 and to maintain Mach .80. This was set into the VNAV descent speed page. Then given heading Left 195 degrees (about 15 ml before HEC).Further speed control about 5 nm from HEC. Maintain 280 kts. Then cleared direct GRAMM. Before reaching GRAMM maintain 250 kts. This entered in FMC and Speed brake used to get A/C back on to new path.Yellow tape gets very close at altitude with 250 KIAS and boards up. Approx 40 nm from GRAMM descend 240. Cleared CIVET 5 RWY 25L. MCP alt set to 7000 (end of STAR alt). After CIVET had to reduce further to 210kts. About 11000ft F1 then F5. Speed entered in FMC Descent page. Then cleared after FUELR for ILS 25L. MCP set to 2000 (Missed approach alt) APP armed and LOC captured shortly followed by the GS. At FUELR speed control of 190 kts req and to maintain to LIMMA and contact tower. After LIMMA F10. 1500AGL Gear down F20. 1000ft AGL F30. The whole descent was flown in VNAV until Approach capture.VREF 143Landing weight 248.3After landing the Fuel remaining was 11.9 tonnesIRS errorsL 0.1 C 0.0 R 0.1Actual burnoff 111.1 kgPlanned 110.3 kgCheersSteve

Great info. You were busy! First glance: LBS Conversion (sorry) NZA // PMDG (GE/Pax)EW (NZA's assumed) 394000 // 394000ZFW 234996 KG 516991 // 494000 (=Payload) (=122991 / =100000) TOTAL FUEL LOADED 270000 // 316481(123000 KG)TAKEOFF WEIGHT 7849512 // 809146(356796 KG)Flight plan miles 4978 // 4880CI 100 // 100Burn (111.1 kg) 244420 // 270800I ran about 2 hrs behind NZA with AS6 providing real time winds. What does

Hi, Sam.I agree, I've noticed that the sim seems to be considerabley more thirsty than the real world ops.I flew the VS19 the other day with similar (nearly exact) loads and needed some 10000 Kg's more than the one in the DVD to make it with a reserve of 6.0 Kg's.I should imagine this is quite a difficult thing to madel though when you add winds to the FMC everything changes but, I do feel that more fuel is required than that of what we see in the real world.Cheers.Mark.

Thanks for the feedback!Boy it was nearly impossible to find any live data on this flight. Though I managed to contruct a route from old data that was quite close/I was able to follow along quite closely without the atc delay ofcourseThanksMike

Did you note any fuel numbers from the trip?But getting the winds aloft right is gonna be the big deal. Those winds can make all the difference when comparing fuel nimbers. I found a reattime winds aloft chart: http://www.flightplanning.navcanada.ca/cgi...on&TypeDoc=htmlLooks to me like the AS6 realtime winds aloft input into the sim was at least in the ball park. Note: The MD11 (. . . and the newer 747-400, hint, hint) have satcomm data links that input these winds aloft data directly to the FMC. In the MD-11, all you do is "click" OK and the enroute winds aloft data is loaded into the FMC's legs page and then used to compute the fuel projection data set. Very cool. Manually entering data for 30 waypoints is no fun. Brought back some finger bruising memories, but it's getting better.The old LTN-52s could only hold 10 waypoints, total. Keeping that INS loaded with just the next waypoints was a full time job . . . generally for, guess who . . . because one of those flight bumbs wanted my seat for a nap. Would generally spend more time 'up front' than they did!

Thanks Steve that was great! I think you need to make a DVD of one of your flights. It makes it that much better when RW pilots such as you take the time to help us fly the 744. Thanks again, Joe Colao

I would like to say big THANK YOU to Steve your information is AMAZING thank you so much for taking your time its deeply apriciated.Take Care !Kind Regards:Alexander

Sam the AVERAGE WIND COMPONENT M018 means that the average wind component over the whole flight is minus 18 kts or in other words a 18kt constant headwind for the whole route. It is used in flight planning. Applying the average wind component to the A to B distance will give you an Equivalent still air distance. You could use this ESAD to calculate fuel from either graphs or application of rules of thumb to check for gross flight plan errors. If you look at our flight the total Distance was 4796 nm. Applying the minus 18kt component makes that and equivalent distance of 4978 nm in still air (no wind component).There could be lots of reasons for the different fuel burns. The winds could have been quite different. How did the flight times vary? Also there may be some modelling issues which will be magnified over that sort of distance. Also the step climbs might have been in different positions. I am not sure what sort of Flt planning data FSBuild provides but can it give you a min fuel required at each waypoint? Our plans give that info at each waypoint. All we do is then compare that info to what the total fuel on board is at that waypoint and we can then then get a "how goes it picture". Forexample at a given waypoint we might have plus 2.5 tonne of fuel. Most of this is the contingency gas. If at the next waypoint we only have 2.3 and the following 2.0 then we can start looking for reasons (Changing flt levels to try different winds, fuel leaks, temperatures, AC heavier than planned etc).I will try to run this trip on PMDG to see how it goes.I have the planned and actual winds/temps for all the waypoints if anyone is interested in them. I was thinking that you could perhaps run an FSBuild or other flight planning program with an inputed headwind of 18 kts at each waypoint. In other words make the wind the reciprocal of the track at 18 kts. This might give a better planning comparison.Sam what was your fuel on board after landing at LAX? Did you fly the CIVET 5 approach and how did it go? You should have the latest chart which is dated jun 06.CheersSteve

Thanks Steve,Excellent info... I've been looking for RW ops at major airports recently and this gave me a lot of info..Just curious, but from a pilots point of view, what is the advantage of the GE's over the RR's?Cheers,Paul

It does indeed! Thanks!

>Thanks Steve,>>Excellent info... I've been looking for RW ops at major>airports recently and this gave me a lot of info..>>Just curious, but from a pilots point of view, what is the>advantage of the GE's over the RR's?>>Cheers,>PaulHi everyone,It's absolutely great to see a real 747 pilot with as much interest in simulation as ourselves (non 747 pilots, non commercial pilots and non pilots at all). I'm sure all of us appreciate and thank your dedication. It's your job and you worked the extra mile to bring a little bit more of realism to the sim community. That's very altruistic of you.Now as Paul asked, I also missed why you prefer the GE airplane over the RR powered.Cheers,Pedro Venda.

It

Steve, thanks for all the info. That is more then I expected to receive and I am looking foward to making this flight in FS next week sometime.Where do you head next? Back to Auckland?