Hi,

 

In my process of learning to fly the T7, I usually fly short hops, 1-3 hours (LFPG-LSGG, LFPG-LOWW, LSGG-LGAV...) to make some experimentations. That was until this week-end. Having a day off tomorrow I decided to make the big jump over the pond with a 8+ hours flight from Paris Roissy Charles de Gaulle LFPG to Washington Dulles KIAD. A flight that I made in real life as a passenger ten years ago to attend my cousin's wedding.

 

 

Hardcore simmers or real pilots will immediately say that the ETOPS circles are missing. That will be for later when I get my Captain rank  :wub:

 

Passing GISTI, at the gate of the NAT routes, I left the aircraft to the computer and went to sleep:

 

 

When I woke up the plane has reached the North American continent:

 

 

All seemed OK when the MASTER CAUTION alarm rang:

 

 

I hit PAUSE immediately and went to sip a coffee analysing what could have happened. First thing I said to myself: I have to take screenshots and share this with the 777 fellows at AVSIM. I could not believe that a failure could happen to me. In all my life of simmer, I've never been into programming failures and I did not remember I set one in the PMDG 777 options. So what happened? On the other side, I was lucky enough to wake up on time otherwise the plane would have crashed. Then I remembered that guys here say to refer to the manual so I was thinking about reading the FCOM to know what to do in case of engine failure. And I noticed the pink message recommandation: FL 330 200-270 KTS.

 

I hit PAUSE again to let the sim continue to see what happens and:

 

 

I now loose both engines! Loosing both engines is very unlikely to happen so I must have made a mistake.

 

Looking at the overhead panel to gather more information, I saw:

 

 

There we are! I did not press the center tank fuel pumps. The reason is that when I do my short flights, even if I read "Press all fuel pumps" on the checklist, actually I do only press the illuminated ones. And on a short flight, only the wing tanks are filled. On this LFPG-KIAD flight I remember now that the FMC issued a yellow message before take-off : FUEL IN CENTER. And at that time I said: "yes I know, so what?" Now I know  :rolleyes:

 

The end of the story is that I pressed CROSSFEED AND CENTER PUMPS, the engines re-started and I finally landed safely at Washington Dulles  :lol: after struggling a moment during the approach to know what to do with a VECTOR waypoint (my first) with a interrupted magenta line on the PFD.

 

One mistery on this flight remains though.

 

When I went to sleep CRZ ALT programmed in the FMC and set on the MCP was FL318 and the aircraft was on stable cruise.

 

And when I woke up the aircraft was at FL400 before the engine failure.

 

My thoughts are: the plane was very heavy on take-off (150+ tons of fuel: I choose the "Long Range" preset in FS Actions), so maybe as it became lighter as time went by, it climbeb to an optimum altitude?!?!?

 

Yes, it will climb if you have autoclimb set in the options (CDU).

 

 

after struggling a moment during the approach to know what to do with a VECTOR waypoint (my first) with a interrupted magenta line on the PFD.

 

If you fly in the United States a lot, get used to things like this:

We don't set our traffic flows up to be able to magenta line it everywhere.  You can get more aircraft in and out of airports if controllers sequence planes by vectoring them.  If you're not using human ATC, then you'll have to self vector.  It's really simple.  Select HDG SEL, point the aircraft towards where you'd like to go (usually towards the approach that you're going to fly), and tell the aircraft to descend using FL CH or V/S.  When you get closer to the approach, you can re-select LNAV, or APP as appropriate.

Couple of suggestions for you - I see you are using PFPX. Why don't you get your fuel load from there, to make it more exact? Also - you don't need to use crossfeed when using center tank as it has 2 pumps, one for each engine. You would normally only use crossfeed to balance the fuel load.

There we are! I did not press the center tank fuel pumps.

 

Hi, Tony,

 

I  was a bit puzzled by this.  More than once I've neglected to turn on the left and right (i.e. main) tanks before engine start, but the engines start just fine.  Looking in the FCOM (FCOM V.2, 12.20.5, pdf page 1137), the engines can operate by suction lines in the main tanks that bypass the fuel pumps.  But there is no mention of such a suction/bypass system for the center tank.  This is consistent with Tony's experience.  But why is there no suction system available for the center tank? 

 

 

When I went to sleep CRZ ALT programmed in the FMC and set on the MCP was FL318 and the aircraft was on stable cruise.

 

And when I woke up the aircraft was at FL400 before the engine failure.

 

 

In addition to using auto step-climb, I believe this can happen if the altitude on the MCP is set to a future step-climb altitude rather than the current cruise altitude -- to 40000 rather than 32000 in your example.  Then the aircraft will step-climb at the FMC calculated points.  But if auto step-climb was off and the MCP altitude was 32000, the aircraft should not have made step-climbs.

 

Mike

Hi,

 

My guess is your lucky to still have your wings attached to the body!

With 83Tons of fuel in the center tank and nothing in the wings, the airplane must have been really stressed!

Hope you did a good check of the bird after flight!  ^_^

 

Regarding the preset altitude on the MCP, even if you set a higher altitude on the box than your actual cruise one, the plane won't climb on her own at a step climb point if the auto step climb feature is not armed. It will keep her actual cruise altitude.

Only on the MD-11, you had the plane climbing on her own once reaching the step climb calculated/programmed in the FMC.

 

A question, however is if you set a level higher than your maximum cruise level, does the plane stop the cruise at her max level on herself? (I don't know that answer I will check on my side).

If it is the case, it could explain why you were at the beginning at "fl318" which is not a normal cruise level (which is a round number) and ended up at fl400 assuming you had entered fl400 at the beginning.

Hi all,

 

Thanks for jumping into my thread.

 

@Daniel: yes I checked autoclimb in the options a while ago without knowing what is is exactly. Looks like I have some reading on my todo list.

 

@Kyle: thanks for your explanations regarding the approaches in the US and the operational instructions. I self-vectored indeed on KIAD.

 

@Wes: yes accurate fuel planning with PFPX is on my learning roadmap but at this stage I use rule of thumb and bold figures with the  "Short/Medium/Long Range" preset in FS Actions. Roger that for crossfeed.

 

@Mike and Romain: initially I wanted to set FL400 in the CDU but it was denied: "Invalid entry, max flight altitude FL318". So I complied and entered FL318 in the CDU and set the same on the MCP. Auto climb was checked. And you know the rest of the story: the aircraft climbed to FL400 during my sleep so I could not witness what happened exactly.

 

 

@Wes: yes accurate fuel planning with PFPX is on my learning roadmap but at this stage I use rule of thumb and bold figures with the "Short/Medium/Long Range" preset in FS Actions. Roger that for crossfeed.

Well done for taking it slow! Fuel planning is really not that hard; PFPX is very accurate if you feed it the correct data. Just remember, if you couple a full payload with a high fuel load, there is a very real possibility you will land over your max landing weight. You could use fuel dump to jettison excess fuel, but hey why not do it right? There is nothing more cool than landing within 1000kg of what PFPX predicted on a 5000nm flight!!

 

RE your issues with flight level - in the real world, if your max alt was 318, you would have filed for 290, 300 or 310 initially depending on route and rules. Usually the highest you can take. There are some interesting issues on the NATS but that's another story, which I am sure Kyle or someone could explain better than me.

Yes I can imagine that it is very satisfying to be within 1 ton of the PFPX prediction for a long haul. I will remember the max landing weight consideration as well as the highest round flight level to max alt. Your advices are much appreciated.

 

 

at this stage I use rule of thumb and bold figures with the "Short/Medium/Long Range" preset in FS Actions.

 

Hi, Tony,

 

"Long Range" is probably too much for LFPG-KIAD - for a 200LR that's more like "Medium."  However I use the following rough rule:  16000 lbs per hour of flight (don't forget headwinds westbound over Atlantic), + 10000 lbs for initial climb, + at least an extra 1-1/2 hours for diversions (another 16000 lbs per extra hour).  You can double-check the fuel after you activate your flight plan by going to the "Progress" page and looking at predicted remaining fuel at destination.  However this could be too high if you haven't entered the winds accurately -- I usually get the flight time for real world flights by looking at Fightaware.com, which does take into account winds). 

 

BTW, my first flight on a 777, was KIAD to LFPG, in 1997, on United, flight 914.

 

 

 

: initially I wanted to set FL400 in the CDU but it was denied: "Invalid entry, max flight altitude FL318". So I complied and entered FL318 in the CDU and set the same on the MCP.

 

Not at my FSX computer right now, but you can see the optimal and maximum altitudes available at the current weight on the VNAV pages - I believe you need to page down to the Cruise page.  Also, to maintain altitude separation, for westbound traffic you should use an even altitude (FL300, FL320, for eastbound an odd one (FL310, FL330).  Step climb should be an even number.  I believe exceptions are made for NAT tracks, since opposite direction tracks are usually quite separated from each other.

 

Anyone on why the center tank doesn't have suction feed (which would have prevented Tony's dual engine flameout)?  Kyle?  Ryan? 

 

Mike

Hi Mike,

 

Yes I was aware that "Long Range" fuel preset was too much for the distance but I wanted to see how she flew with that amount of fuel. And indeed VR was increased and during take-off I heard the RAAS voice " x hundreds feet runway remaining...". I lift off just in time lol After that the climb was very slow.

 

I remember there was a rule of thumb calculation method in the tutorial but I copied-pasted yours too in my learning logbook  B)

 

Yes, the "Progress" page is now my friend. I need to make friend with the VNAV page for the optimal and maximum altitudes.

 

Many thanks for your advices. 

 

 

Anyone on why the center tank doesn't have suction feed (which would have prevented Tony's dual engine flameout)?  Kyle?  Ryan? 

Could be to do with gravity - the wings are above the engines, making suction feed easier, whereas the centre tank is in line with or below the engine fuel intake, making suction much more difficult.

Yes, the "Progress" page is now my friend. I need to make friend with the VNAV page for the optimal and maximum altitudes.

Something to bear in mind RE altitudes - your optimum is often not a round number, you would never file for it exactly, also, as you burn off fuel, both optimum and maximum will increase, so lets say your optimum is FL328, max is FL354, file for FL350 if available, then as you burn fuel, your optimum will catch up to your actual alt. Then you could also look at step climbs, as by the time your optimum has reached FL350, your MAX might be FL374, so step climb to FL370 if available. Thats a basic explanation, but it should illustrate the idea.

There are suction bypass valves in each main tank that allow for fuel flow when the pumps are off. The center tank doesn’t have any sort of pump bypass valves which is why fuel won’t flow when the pumps are off.

 

 

Brian

 

 

There are suction bypass valves in each main tank that allow for fuel flow when the pumps are off. The center tank doesn’t have any sort of pump bypass valves which is why fuel won’t flow when the pumps are off.

 

Yes -- the question I have is why doesn't it?

 

Mike

Didn't you get FUEL IN CENTER message on the EICAS? That should remind you that you center pumps are off.