Incompetent Flight Engineer, the Sequel

BIG, double-deck, four-engine, medium to long range, high altitude, high speed, commercial transport airplane
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RichardFS
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Incompetent Flight Engineer, the Sequel

Post by RichardFS »

I am currently doing a flight from KBOS to EHAM, and I calculated a fuel load of 43,014 pounds. This should give me, with a 90 knot tailwind at 25,500 feet, an hour's surplus of fuel for the usual (diversion, holding etc.) This much fuel pretty much tops off every tank, so all the tanks are virtually completely full. My center tank ran dry first, no problem. Now my inboard wing tanks are almost empty with 2000 pounds in each and my outboards have 6600 pounds each. I am going to be curious to see that the FE does. The issue I had last time was that he lets the tanks go dry and then doesn't switch the engines to manifold and the inboard engines quit. I was met with profuse blame on my part for not filling the tanks correctly. If he does the same thing this time around (reminder that all the tanks were virtually full, there's literally no way I could have filled them incorrectly), I think it's going to be hard for you to justify blaming me for the issue. I understand that this simulation has been restlessly tested, tweaked, modified, improved, monitored, every other thing you can do with it before it was released and I understand that there SHOULDN'T be issues with it, but sometimes there are. It could very well be a conflict with my sim settings or the specific download. I also may be wrong about the procedure; maybe you don't switch the engine to manifold... But then, what DO you do? Whatever it is, the FE hasn't been doing it.

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FAC257
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Re: Incompetent Flight Engineer, the Sequel

Post by FAC257 »

Firstly, at 2000 lbs in the inboard tanks, the FE should already be running the inboard tanks from the manifold. Once the inboards hit the 2000 mark, he'll run all four engines from the outboard tanks, until the outboards also hit 2000 lbs. At that point where both inboards and outboards are at 2000, he'll switch back to Tank>Engine on all four.

The center tank is always run dry first, so that is normal.

Makes no difference how you load the fuel, the FE will try to follow the same logic:
-Center Tank First
-Inboard tanks to 2000 then switched to Manifold.
-Run all four engines on outboard tanks, until outboards are at 2000.
-Switch all four to Tank to Engine.
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RichardFS
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Re: Incompetent Flight Engineer, the Sequel

Post by RichardFS »

FAC257 wrote:Firstly, at 2000 lbs in the inboard tanks, the FE should already be running the inboard tanks from the manifold. Once the inboards hit the 2000 mark, he'll run all four engines from the outboard tanks, until the outboards also hit 2000 lbs. At that point where both inboards and outboards are at 2000, he'll switch back to Tank>Engine on all four.

The center tank is always run dry first, so that is normal.

Makes no difference how you load the fuel, the FE will try to follow the same logic:
-Center Tank First
-Inboards to 2000 then switched to Manifold.
-Run all four on outboards, until outboards are at 2000.
-Switch all four to Tank to Engine. From there he is pretty excellent at keeping the tanks balanced enough to fly until there are only fumes in each of the tanks, and having the engines quit within moments of each other.
Yes, he did indeed switch the engines at 2000 pounds and it has stayed that way thus far. What you've described is what I assumed the procedure to be and expected him to do to. Interesting how you point out that it doesn't matter how they're filled, because I pointed this out in my older post this is in reference to and everyone told me it wasn't true and that I was filling the tanks wrong and how dare I accuse their spotless simulation of having an error. Just profusely blaming me and as you've probably noticed I took it rather personal. It looks like I'm going to have to make a stop in either Shannon or Dublin, most likely because I use an average fuel burn figure to calculate my fuel and I took off a few pounds over MTOW. I tried to avoid having to stop for fuel by climbing higher to 29,500 where the tailwind is about 40 knots higher but seemingly to no avail. If I do make it, I won't have any fuel for a go around or diversion. Oh well. I'm also running low on oil. The FE has switched the outboards to "TANK-TO ENG AND MAN" and the inboards to "MAN TO ENG".

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FAC257
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Re: Incompetent Flight Engineer, the Sequel

Post by FAC257 »

>>> "The FE has switched the outboards to "TANK-TO ENG AND MAN" and the inboards to "MAN TO ENG". <<<

That is correct. What you'll probably see happen is that when the outboards also reach 2000, the FE will make another tank/engine/feed configuration change so that he's pulling from all four tanks.

BTW, 2000 in each tank is a long ways from being empty. :)
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RichardFS
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Re: Incompetent Flight Engineer, the Sequel

Post by RichardFS »

FAC257 wrote:>>> "The FE has switched the outboards to "TANK-TO ENG AND MAN" and the inboards to "MAN TO ENG". <<<

That is correct. What you'll probably see happen is that when the outboards also reach 2000, the FE will make another tank/engine/feed configuration change so that he's pulling from all four tanks.

BTW, 2000 in each tank is a long ways from being empty. :)
He has indeed done just that. As I get closer, I'm triangulating my estimated range. Looks like now I'll have just enough fuel to taxi to the gate if I delay my descent as much as possible and my gate isn't all the way on the other side of Timbuktu. I cheated and refilled my oil midflight because I got scared :lol:

For some reason the FE is working perfectly this time around.

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FAC257
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Re: Incompetent Flight Engineer, the Sequel

Post by FAC257 »

That's excellent news. :)
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RichardFS
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Re: Incompetent Flight Engineer, the Sequel

Post by RichardFS »

FAC257 wrote:That's excellent news. :)
Landed with 1000 pounds of fuel left. shaved that one close. If I have problems with the FE again I'll reply to this thread. Thanks for you input.

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FAC257
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Re: Incompetent Flight Engineer, the Sequel

Post by FAC257 »

You shouldn't have to worry about running out of oil as long as you keep it topped off at the beginning of each flight.
Flown many a 14-16 hour non-stops in the 377, and she's never come close to running out of oil.
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CAPFlyer
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Re: Incompetent Flight Engineer, the Sequel

Post by CAPFlyer »

FAC257 wrote:Makes no difference how you load the fuel, the FE will try to follow the same logic
Except it does and it's been reported multiple times that it does. If you grossly misload the airplane (as he was doing and I've confirmed and posted in the past) the FE isn't able to deal with a bad load and will not function properly, just as it did with him. If you fuel correctly or close to correctly, then he works fine.

Richard - as we tried to make you understand in the previous post, it's not that the simulation is perfect. It's that it has its limitations and if you don't load the fuel correctly, it won't work right. So yes, your mis-loading was causing the issue, but it's because of the software, but you didn't want to hear it. You wanted the sim to do something it won't.
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RichardFS
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Re: Incompetent Flight Engineer, the Sequel

Post by RichardFS »

CAPFlyer wrote:
FAC257 wrote:Makes no difference how you load the fuel, the FE will try to follow the same logic
Except it does and it's been reported multiple times that it does. If you grossly misload the airplane (as he was doing and I've confirmed and posted in the past) the FE isn't able to deal with a bad load and will not function properly, just as it did with him. If you fuel correctly or close to correctly, then he works fine.

Richard - as we tried to make you understand in the previous post, it's not that the simulation is perfect. It's that it has its limitations and if you don't load the fuel correctly, it won't work right. So yes, your mis-loading was causing the issue, but it's because of the software, but you didn't want to hear it. You wanted the sim to do something it won't.
"Grossly misloading" the airplane is a massive exaggeration. You haven't confirmed that I grossly misloaded anything - You confirmed that I fueled it un-ideally. According to what's in the actual simulation, I was filling the tanks correctly or close to correctly. I fuel the airplanes exactly as they're advertised to be fueled. I looked through the manual and it did in fact reflect what is shown on the FE panel. So I was not incorrectly fueling the airplane to the point that it should cause a reaction that dramatic. And like I've said and like CAPFlyer has said, what does the current percentage of the tanks in relation of each other have to do with the percentage that the FE is coded to react to? If he is coded, for example, to switch the tanks at 2000 pounds until the other tanks reach 2000 pounds and then switching them all, what difference does it make how much fuel was in them in relation to each other before that point? Again, I understand that the simulation isn't perfect. My offense is taken when I am profusely blamed for something that it is not the fault of my own.

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CAPFlyer
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Re: Incompetent Flight Engineer, the Sequel

Post by CAPFlyer »

Your gross misloading was that you loaded the center first then the wings instead of the wings first. You said so in your first post. If you have nearly empty wings and full center and he's programmed to go through the progression sequentially and can't skip a step. So if you have the Center Tank and outboards full but hardly any in the inner wing, when he switches to Config 2 (burning the Inners to 2000 lbs) he short-circuits because he's already at that point or beyond it, so he doesn't switch to Config 3, and thus your problem happens. It was ONLY under this circumstance that the FE would short circuit. It was something brought up years ago, but A2A didn't do anything because as long as you followed the fueling procedures outlined in the manual for how to fuel the airplane instead of trying to "reverse engineer" the fuel consumption schedule which isn't intended as a fueling guide as well.

From your first post in the first thread -
RichardFS wrote:When I fuel the airplane, I typically fill the center tank to capacity first, then fill the outboard tanks, and then the inboard tanks.
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RichardFS
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Re: Incompetent Flight Engineer, the Sequel

Post by RichardFS »

CAPFlyer wrote:Your gross misloading was that you loaded the center first then the wings instead of the wings first. You said so in your first post. If you have nearly empty wings and full center and he's programmed to go through the progression sequentially and can't skip a step. So if you have the Center Tank and outboards full but hardly any in the inner wing, when he switches to Config 2 (burning the Inners to 2000 lbs) he short-circuits because he's already at that point or beyond it, so he doesn't switch to Config 3, and thus your problem happens. It was ONLY under this circumstance that the FE would short circuit. It was something brought up years ago, but A2A didn't do anything because as long as you followed the fueling procedures outlined in the manual for how to fuel the airplane instead of trying to "reverse engineer" the fuel consumption schedule which isn't intended as a fueling guide as well.

From your first post in the first thread -
RichardFS wrote:When I fuel the airplane, I typically fill the center tank to capacity first, then fill the outboard tanks, and then the inboard tanks.

Yes, but the center tank is used up far more quickly, even if the other tanks aren't full. The center tank almost always runs dry before any other tank. So by the time the other tanks get down to the critical point, it won't really be any different than if I had done it otherwise

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CAPFlyer
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Re: Incompetent Flight Engineer, the Sequel

Post by CAPFlyer »

Re-read the manual. I hate to sound harsh, but you're not understanding what it's telling you. You are SUPPOSED TO USE THE CENTER TANK FUEL FIRST!

Again, your fueling improperly in the first thread is what led to your problem.

Here's what you say you did (numbers are simply for example) -

Flight requires 5400 gallons / 32,400 pounds of fuel.
Phase of Flight - Outer - Inner - Center - Inner - Outer (in pounds)

Takeoff - 10674 - 1872 - 7308 - 1872 - 10674
Now you takeoff. The tanks are "Tank to Engine" (Config 0). So you are burning from all 4 wing tanks but not out of the center. An hour later, you reach top of climb and the FE prepares to set Config 2 because there is fuel in the center tank. Config 1 is CENTER feeding the #1 and #4 engines and the INNER tanks feeding their respective engines. Your fuel looks something like this -
Top of Climb - 9074 - 272 - 7308 - 272 - 9074
As you can see, at TOC as you configure for cruise, the FE wants to move to Config 1 (#1 & #4 from Manifold, #2 & #3 in Tank-to-Engine), but there is less than 2000 pounds in the inner tanks, so he doesn't know what to do because the #2 and #3 tanks are below 2000 pounds. There is no configuration for this. So, he sets Config 2 as programmed and runs your inners dry and you either have to take over or the engines shutdown.

The ONLY configurations the Flight Engineer can use are the ones outlined in the manual on pages 64 - 67. If your fuel doesn't conform to one of these 5 configurations, then he'll short circuit and stop working. That's what happened and what we told you was happening, but it appears you still don't want to understand it.
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