PIC Race across the Pond is now confirmed.The Date is 04th May 2003.Timing is as follows - 1400 UK Time, 1300 UTC (Zulu), 0900 Eastern For our US friends.Routeing remains EGLL - CYYZ.Planning rules remain, each pilot plans their own route using Winds aloft charts, Daily Nat tracks, Vatsim Nat tracks or a random routeing. Some info will be posted to help with the routeings.Now the major difference - There are at least 4 weather programmes. This will obviously cause some difficulty as not every weather engine will report the winds aloft the exact same. So here is how we will overcome this problem.The Race is now effectively a challenge to see how well you can plan and fly a flight particular to the weather engine you are using. In other words let's see who can come up with the best flight plan and flight time for the seperate weather programmes. This will also give us the first major comparison test of the various weather programmes that are available for FS2002.The rules about the screenshots remain the same. Maybe also a screenshot of the flightplan as well for route verification.Now the last variable is when is Ernie going to release FSBuild v2. We can't have MB the only true competitor just because he has a beta copy.Mark

Four Winners and a true comparison of Oceanic winds aloft data between multiple weather engines. FANTASTIC!I would make an offer to you all but logistically it may be impossible. I was thinking that if Ernie does not have FSBuild 2.0 ready, I would let everyone email their intended routing to me and I would build their plan in FSBuild. Depending on the weather source, I may not be able to integrate the wind data but it would provide a good way for each pilot to log the winds crossing each fix. My discussing this is completely academic though because you will need to wait till the morning of the flight to lock into your routing and I would not have time to turn around your flightplans before launch time. Soooooooooooo, what to do? I could generate a standard flight plan using one of the daily tracks and let everyone edit it by hand to match their chosen route. Yea, that could work, whatch think Mark?

Mike,sounds a good idea - maybe do 6 plans all based on what the Nat Tracks are for that day, and then a pilot just chooses what one they want to fly.Mark

Mike,how about this:I will publish details of the Standard Routeings between EGLL and the Oceanic Entry Fixes & the Oceanic Exit Fixes and CYYZ. The pilots then choose which Nat track or route they want to fly and add the 2 standard route parts to the end. FSBuild 1 could then be used to create a basic flightplan, PIC dispatcher to create a fuel plan and Word or something similar to combine into a more advanced flightplan.Btw I finally got round to getting myself a Headset - Plantronics Audio 70, so hopefully no more Text Only for me, Should make things a lot easier at busy times.

Mark, Can we make our own, custom routeing?as i've often seen that f.e. A330's can use their own 'non-standard' rouetings across the pond, the only thing you need to note is you need a special oceanic clearance. But is this allowed?I'm truly looking forward to it, though i'll be just back from Barcelona and am supposed to be tired.. will do my best.Cheers

I was on an A330 last December that flew a non-standard route CYYZ-EGLL. The pilot told me any (modern) aircraft (including 767) can do this dependant on the amount of traffic over the pond. If it's busy, "you have to stay on the highway" the nice Captain told me.I guess it will be Mark's call if this is allowed, but it would complicate things a bit me thinks.Rob.

Sounds good Mark. You set up the front and tail end of the trip and I will plug in the latest NAT tracks. Rather than providing the FPs as PDF files, I will leave them in text format. If a pilot wants, they can simply open and edit the file by deleting NAT fixes and insert their own data or create blank lines to pencil it in during the flight.FSBuild will be providing fuel planning on the FP but I must warn you about that. I wrote the burn calculation table to match a cost index of 80. We will be trying to make the trip with a much higher CI equivalency. If you follow the FSBuild fuel numbers, you may eat every drop of your reserves before landing in Toronto. Keep this in mind, I know I will.

Guys don't Panic.Atlantic routeings can be Daily NAT Tracks / Vatsim Nat Tracks / Random Route The only standard part is the domestic sectors of the flight plan, EGLL - Oceanic Entry Point.Oceanic Exit Point - CYYZ.I will publish details of what these standard routeings are. There are at least 10 possible Oceanic Entry points for the UK, so plenty of scope for different routes.Mark

Just a suggestion, but why not get people to use FSACARS to collect the time on and off. It gather all the data needed in a log file and you can even get a little utility to ensure no one has tampered with the log. Of course, we wouldn't need that, now would we :-halo Hoping to be there because this should be a great event.And as a followup, how about he same route at Max ZFW with the idea being to get across the pond with the least amount of fuel burned?Ben