F1 Charter flights

[CBreuer]

Hi Crew.

I started a little series of Special Flight Reports of the flights for the German F1 Grand Prix. First report is of the flight from Curaçao to New Orleans.
But I am afraid the second report of the flight from New Orleans to Düsseldorf won't be as detailed as the first report regarding the preflight planning. I hope you enjoy these reports.

[CBreuer]

Hi Crew.

I have done another report on the flight from New Orleans to Düsseldorf. But be careful as they include many pictures.:D

[agenthunt]

Really great reports! I was curious how you generated all those preflight documents in the first report. Is that part of the PMDG aircraft or do you use some external application?

[CBreuer]

Really great reports! I was curious how you generated all those preflight documents in the first report. Is that part of the PMDG aircraft or do you use some external application?

Hi Cliff.

Thank you for your nice comments.

For loading the aircraft I use the PMDG Loadeditor. For takeoff and landing reports I now use TOPCAT and for the flight planning in general I use Flight Operation Center (FOC), which is a very powerful program, but also very expensive. But I now use it for about 5-6 years and I still don't know everything about it. It doesn't create the routes for you, you still have to do it on your own, but once you have the routes and use real weather and know the ZFW of your aircraft it produces quite good results. I think the flightplan of the flight from New Orleans to Düsseldorf was one of the closer ones, as the times almost matched perfectly according to flying time. I think there was only a difference of 2 minutes. But on a flight that lasts for 8-9 hours I would call 2 minutes 'nothing'. :D

[CBreuer]

Hi guys,

I have now added the report of the return flight of the charter to the F1 Grand Prix in Germany. You can find it here.

Enjoy it.

[agenthunt]

Really great reports! I was curious how you generated all those preflight documents in the first report. Is that part of the PMDG aircraft or do you use some external application?

For takeoff and landing reports I now use TOPCAT and for the flight planning in general I use Flight Operation Center (FOC), which is a very powerful program, but also very expensive.

I checked out those programs. The do look very interesting, but a little more expensive than what I'm willing to spend based on what they provide. TOPCAT is a little expensive; but you're right, FOC is really expensive but also very impressive.

[CBreuer]

I checked out those programs. The do look very interesting, but a little more expensive than what I'm willing to spend based on what they provide. TOPCAT is a little expensive; but you're right, FOC is really expensive but also very impressive.

Hi Cliff.

As I wrote I use FOC for some years now and I think as I first bought it it wasn't as expensive as it is now, but I am not really sure about it.

I only bought TOPCAT as it is the only program that provides data for the MD-11, which are very useful for planning purposes. And you can load the aircraft throughout this program and it worked without problems, except on the flight from New Orleans to Curaçao. For some reason CG ran out of the limits.