MD 11 freeware fuelplaner

[xxJohnxx 21]

Hi Guys,I have been out there in the world wide web, far away from the PMDG Forum. Out there I found some performance charts for SwissAir's MD11. They reached up to 2000NM. Not perfect, but better than nothing. Then I took a calculator and played around with some numbers.Then I used my little php knowledge and wrote some lanes of code. After uploading the whole thing I liked it and I want to share it:--> http://fuel.cwsurf.de <--As the title of this topic says it is a freeware MD 11 fuel planing tool especialy made for use with the PMDG MD 11. It is in Beta now. I only flew some short distance tests. I don't know how exactly it will be on a long range flight but you can find out, or?If you fly in the simulator and you used my fuel planner for the fuel planing please leave a comment here how good it worked and if you had the reserves still in the tank when you landet. If you run out of gas with the MD 11 and it was my fault please blame me here and now and add what you have entered and how much fuel was missing. The same thing with to much fuel. Write it here and it will be fixed. So enjoy your MD 11 and hopfully also my fuelplaner. Best regards,Jonathan

[sandpatch 9]

Hello Jonathan,Thank you very much. Finally somebody with programming skills has made an effort to make a calculator. I already tried to enter some random number and when I enter "distance to alternate" 5 i got -87 KG. Is there any special reason or is it a bug? I also tried 1 and i got -227 KG. The stuff I entered was:

Distance (NM): 250Distance to alternate (NM): 1Cargo weight (KG) 50000 KGTaxifuel (KG): 1500 KGAverage wind (- for headwind and + for tailwind): +50FL: 340Holding time: 45 minContengency percentage (%): 15 %

I would also like to ask you if you could add the possibility to calculate in lbs. As I fly for an American virtual airline it would be much easier to calculate the fuel. Good luck with the planner Manfred

[xxJohnxx 21]

Hi Manfred, Thank you for your feedback. I have changed some values and now it should fit withe the alternaten fuel. It won't show anything below 100 anymore.But also if your reserve is bleow 6000KG automaticly 6000KG are added. You can see this by that line:<pre>FUEL ON BOARD : 10792 KG [6000 KG MIN RESERVE ADDED] </pre>That has some technical reasons for me in the fuelplaner and also looks better wenn you land with 6000 KG instead 2000 KG or anything less ;) Pound are also a good idea. I try to add the possiblity to change from KG to LBS but it can take a few days. Jonathan

[ck777 2]

Thanks for posting this! I'll try to use it in the next couple of days. I've really wanted a good fuel planner for the MD-11 but just haven't found what I'm looking for. I've been using Vroute Premium and Topcat but they haven't worked out great for me. Chris K.

[SMaus 1]

Seems to be pretty accurate. I did a flight from EGLL to VHHH, 5536 nm with 20 nm to VMMC as alternate. 280 passengers, 17500 kgs of cargo, average tailwind of 12 kts with an initial cruising altitude of FL330 giving me a predicted route fuel of 83616 kgs.With a rather short taxi time (I never burned up 1500 kgs of taxi fuel) I had a fuel consumption of a little over 85 tons with a cost index of 80 and step climbs to FL350 and FL370. Since I used Brookmans Park 6G as my SID in EGLL which tells me to stay at 6000 ft until BPK (which your program can't possibly know) I would say you are spot on.We'll see what happens on my way back... :)

[vc10man 732]

Absolutely fantastic,Jonathan. Hats off to you for such a sterling job. Just the ticket for the MD-11 fuel instead of a the 'hit-and-miss' Insufficient Fuel flags in the FMS

[xxJohnxx 21]

Thank you for your comments. Yesterday I have played around with Pounds a little bit. The way I tried it wasn't the right one. But now I think I have found an idea which will allow this future. Takes me some days but it will come until next sunday (hopefully!). Best regards Jonathan

[xxJohnxx 21]

Hi, Version 00.30 features now calculation in KGS and LBS for the MD11F. The passenger MD11 will follow soon! Notice please the Version 00.30 is a Beta version for the LBS, if you find any issues, please contact me here. Jonathan

[sandpatch 9]

I used the planner today on a flight from RPLL to VHHH. It isn't very far but it was very accurate, it said that I had 18.000 lbs reserve on landing and I had 18.500 lbs reserve because of tailwind (that I didn't plan). I will try it on a longer run next time which will be in about a week.One bug that still seems to be there is the alternate distance bug. When i enter 1 as "distance to alternate" and 100.000lbs "cargo weight" on the MD11F now I get -602 lbs fuel. The funny thing is that when I increase the cargo volume to 200.000lbs i get +389lbs fuel to alternative and finally 20.000lbs cargo weight gives me -1402lbs fuel to alternative. This really isn't a big issue bug it looks strange on the table. Keep up the good workRegards Manfred

[G7USL 117]

Jonathon, your an angel, mate.Thanks so much.Us pensioners are fortunate recievers from people like yourself.

[xxJohnxx 21]

Hi, Thank you for your comments. Nice to hear it works! LBS for the PAX MD11 will come soon, maybe until next monday. It is a little bit more difficult than the cargo plane, and I am not able to copy much code. So it takes me some time. @Manfred thank you for the information. I know the bug with the reserve. It is a little bit tricky and I will need some time to find a solution for it. It is a problem with the charts I found in the internet. They they expect a landing weight of 190000kgs. If for example the landing weight is only 1400000kgs they want me to subtract 1900000kgs and than multi plicate that by 10.So if landing weight is greater than 190000kgs, no problem, there will be a positive result. But when it is smaller than you get the negative result. But also the distance matters. If you have a big distance to the alternate you won't get negative values.But as said before, I am looking for a solution. Best regards, Jonathan

[sandpatch 9]

Hi, Thank you for your comments. Nice to hear it works! LBS for the PAX MD11 will come soon, maybe until next monday. It is a little bit more difficult than the cargo plane, and I am not able to copy much code. So it takes me some time.@Manfred thank you for the information. I know the bug with the reserve. It is a little bit tricky and I will need some time to find a solution for it. It is a problem with the charts I found in the internet. They they expect a landing weight of 190000kgs. If for example the landing weight is only 1400000kgs they want me to subtract 1900000kgs and than multi plicate that by 10.So if landing weight is greater than 190000kgs, no problem, there will be a positive result. But when it is smaller than you get the negative result. But also the distance matters. If you have a big distance to the alternate you won't get negative values.But as said before, I am looking for a solution. Best regards, Jonathan

Thx for the update. I just want to say that i brought it up again because judging from the previous post I understood it in the way that it was fixed. I was worried that it had shown up again in the lbs part of the program. Regards Manfred

[xxJohnxx 21]

Yea it is a little bit complicated.One of the two fixes I made for that, if your calulated reserve fuel will be low (lower than 8000kgs or 18000lbs) 8000kgs/18000lbs are used for reserve. You can see that on the 'Fuel on Board' line when it says: "8000kgs reserve fuel added" So if there is a negative value on the fuel to alternate it doesn't matters pretty much because the calculator uses 8000kgs or 18000lbs. The thing I need to fix now is the negative value in the 'Fuel to alternate' line, because it can confuse the user a little bit. Jonathan

[carlan2uk 0]

Thank you Jonathan, it works very well inmy initial tests!David

[sandpatch 9]

Jonathan, I just want to say that I flew from RKSI to PANC and then to KMEM and the fuel planner worked perfectly! Thank you very much! Regards Manfred