QF11: "Five In-Flight Movies Between Australia And The USA"

By Bill Smith (2 January 2006)

Due to an unfortunate medical emergency, I found myself on Christmas Eve separated from my wife and daughter, who were both stranded on the other side of the country. With the emergency now over, and with no work or family to interrupt my leisure time, I took the opportunity to find out how well FS2004 could cope with a long intercontinental flight in real time using real weather.

I'd first attempted intercontinental flights years ago with FS98 but back then, without the aid of today's sophisticated built-in flight planner, navigation had been very much a hit and miss affair. Later, several attempts in FS2002 had proven to be unsuccessful because the computer always locked up after only an hour or so of real time flight. (Perhaps due to an incompatibility between the FS program and my Windows 98 operating system).

But my present Windows XP/FS2004 combination seemed to be fairly reliable and as I unexpectedly found myself at a loose end, with only the dog to keep me company, I decided to give flight QF11 a try. QF11 is a daily 747-400 service of 13.5 hours duration from Sydney (YSSY) to Los Angeles (KLAX). I had time on my hands and nothing to lose.

1. PREPARATION

First, I downloaded a Project Open Sky Qantas 747-400 from FlightSim.Com and installed it into my FS2004 program. Naturally, I took the precaution of testing fuel consumption at 36,000 feet and discovered that it was using 12,000 lbs per hour at Mach 0.81. (Sounded unrealistically low to me but I needed to know that figure to calculate the fuel load for flight QF11). I also needed to practice landing such a very large aircraft, as I have lately been flying the much smaller A320. The most common trap for flight simmers unfamiliar with the 747 is to mis-judge the height of the cockpit above the runway, flare too late on final and drive the main bogeys into the pavement. (The sound of the main undercarriage collapsing can result in a noise-abatement infringement notice.)

The FS flight planner indicated a total distance of 6525 nm and suggested a fuel load of 301,728 lbs for a flight time of 13 hours. But, based on known fuel consumption figures for the POSKY flight model, I reduced this figure to 250,000 lbs which I calculated should keep this 747 aloft for as long as 19 hours if necessary.

2. WEATHER

When I downloaded real weather on December 24, 2005, Sydney was enduring a maximum temperature of 38°C, no clouds but only 3 miles of visibility due to smoke haze. More worrying for me, the winds were blowing WNW at 25 knots. Now I know that 747s are sometimes obliged to use the shorter 07/25 runway and it would be easier for me to takeoff directly into the strong wind. However, with such an extremely high temperature I was not sure if 8290 feet of pavement would be enough to safely get this 747 to takeoff speed.

3. READY FOR PUSHBACK

Having received IFR clearance (to 9000 feet initially) for LAX, my half-day adventure was ready to begin. I was actually starting to feel excited. (Yes, you're right, I REALLY NEED to get out more!) VH-OJD pushed back from Sydney's International Terminal on schedule at 15.20. (GMT 5.20) I started the engines and requested taxi clearance. Sydney ground only offered me a choice of runways 34L or 34R, so I would have to deal with the strong crosswind as best I could. I started the clock running and began lumbering out to 34L.

4. TAKEOFF

At 15.35 I turned on the strobes and landing lights, set autobrakes to RTO and received clearance to takeoff. I'm happy to report that the huge aircraft was barely affected by the crosswind during the takeoff roll and lift off. A/P on and I climbed out, switched to departure frequency and turned northeast towards the first waypoint.

It took a long time to break through the smoke haze, then at 10,000 feet I turned off the landing lights and let the plane accelerate up towards cruise altitude. It was at 18,000 feet that I noted the difference between the POSKY flight model over the program's default 747. I had to pitch down and increase N1 to 91% in order to maintain 300 kts airspeed during the climb. (By contrast, all FS2004 default jets are over-powered).

5. CRUISE

At FL 310, I checked the fuel situation and found that at the 747 was burning 11,600 lbs/hour with 230,000 lbs of fuel remaining. That left enough fuel for at least another 19 hours flying. I was keen to see how close I could keep to the real world QF11 schedule. (Assuming of course that the whole system didn't lock up and crash at some point during the flight).

At this time, I reset amount of FS traffic to 98% for the duration of the cruise. (My system's crappy video card forces me to reduce traffic at or near the busy airports because of the resulting reduced frame rates.) I stuck a yellow "post-it" note to my computer screen to remind me to lower the traffic percentage before my descent into LAX.

I had to wait for the next ATC handoff before I could leave the cockpit to pee. (Didn't want to miss a radio call and have my IFR flight plan cancelled). Back in the cockpit, I made contact on the next frequency and requested a climb to FL370. 90 minutes into the flight I requested a climb to FL410. Again, between frequency hand-offs and the next contact I found plenty of things to do that were infinitely more interesting than watching the sky outside the cockpit grow gradually dark as sunset approached.

I ate left-over pizza, wrapped Christmas presents, swam, walked the dog and whenever I came back to check on QF11's progress, I found to my delight that it was still winging its way eastward with no glitches at all. I only had to turn on the panel and navigation lights as the sky grew dark.

As I went out for dinner, I realized that on the real QF11, the passengers would now be watching the second of five successive full-length feature movies as they settled down for their flight through the night, across the International Dateline and back into the start of December 24.

When I returned from dinner, I saw that the computer was still happily running QF11 across its 6000 nm track to Los Angeles. I watched some TV and then around midnight, (my local time) I drank some coffee and started to "psych" myself into my approach into LAX. Sometime after sunrise (west coast USA time) I re-established ATC communications with the Oakland Center.

6. DESCENT

At about 140 nm out from LAX I slowed the jet to Mach 0.74 and waited for the ATC instruction to commence descent. I had to use the flight spoilers to prevent over-speed during the initial phase of the descent. At about 80 nm out from Los Angeles I downloaded the current weather for LAX and reset the traffic to just 45%.

Having successfully negotiated an ocean crossing in real time, I was acutely aware of the need to completely focus on the task at hand. If I stuffed up the approach or the landing now, the whole exercise would have been a waste of time. (Which I guess it was anyway, but that's beside the point).

7. APPROACH

I received instructions to expect vectors for runway 07R approach. Just to make it more interesting, I requested a transition through SMO. (Santa Monica). I loaded up the GPS for an automatic track north of LAX at 5000 feet, then a procedure turn to the west, for about 20 miles out over the ocean. This would give me time to collect my thoughts and line up for a smooth approach. As the 747 followed the track and made the turn to base (south) I switched the mode control panel from NAV to HDG (155 degrees) and switched from GPS to NAV mode bringing alive the NAV1 and NAV2 ILS frequencies for 07R. I descended to 3500 feet and just waited for the runway to come into alignment before switching again from HDG to NAV mode. The plane locked onto the localizer track, then as the glide slope indicator came alive I switched to approach mode and followed the ILS down to the runway.

Gear down, spoilers armed, autobrake set to medium. I was near the end of what had been a very long day and yet, I was completely focused. Auto throttles off at 2000 feet, reduce speed to 160 kts with full flaps and then A/P off at 900 feet. What followed was the smoothest 747 landing I have ever executed. All I had to do now was find gate G30, right around the other side of the airport.

8. SHUT DOWN

At shut down the 747's clock showed 817 minutes (just over 13 and a half hours). The local time was 11.13, which was "out" by about 90 minutes. So the system clock hadn't quite adjusted over the different time zones. There were still 38,000 lbs of fuel remaining.

The FS2004/Windows XP system had performed faultlessly for more than 13 hours, and the simulation very closely matched Qantas's scheduled flight time. All in all, an incredibly satisfying total waste of time! Best of all, I had beaten the real QF11, which according to the Qantas web site departed Sydney 30 minutes late and arrived at LAX 15 minutes behind schedule.

Bill Smith
Perth, Western Australia
Author, 'Get Real!' (The world's first flight simulation novel)
www.toomuchfs.com
leesmith@ca.com.au

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