FDX aviator

I'm in the green by 84,000 lbs.
So just when I'm feeling mighty good about that, it occurs to me that I'm just a lowly F/O, who's been on the airplane (MD) only 6 months, and have almost no control at all of the fuel use. The only exception is I could be flying balls to the wall when I'm flying if el Capitan doesn't object.

AerisArmis

You forgot to mention just what kind of "fun" the ex-squid guys have in the cockpit. Same kind of "fun" they have at Joliet or San Quentin!

FDX aviator

OK, now to deflate my own balloon in public...
After closer inspection, I see where it was in fact a super-efficient MD-11 that burned 22K lbs on a 6+ hr flight!
Or maybe the closeout was wrong...?

FR8Hauler

Wow, what are you doing buying gas with your own credit card? I am only in the green by about 5 grand and I fly my @$$ off and try to conserve.

frozenboxhauler

I STILL don't have a history!! Maybe it's because I've been on vacation since the end of July.
fbh

tennesseeflyboy

Check your FP/R's, I have seen where the "profile descent" was not used and the release will show the flight for example, overhead TWIKL at 33,000 with MEM as destination. This begs the question, how is this skewing the fuel burn numbers ?

MacGuy2

I think this "Fuel Sense History" is more 'garbage in equals garbage out.' All of my individual flights have been in the green, except two. The first was from SEA to YVR where I was OVER the burn by 4,000 pounds. How can that be. It's only a 30 minute flight and we had no freight. We did have about 4,000 pounds of MFWF however, so I don't know if that got thrown into the mix. The second case was also an empty airplane flown from YVR to LAX. About the same amount of overburn and the same amount of MFWF.

So I'm trying to make Mr. Fuel Sense (BG) happy by saving all this gas, then I get hammered because there's some glitch in the software. I guess the bottom line is to just save gas when I can and not worry about this "big brother" software that's erroneously tracking every gallon of gas I use (or don't use).

I guess it would just be nice if the stuff they post on the website was accurate, not just a bunch of garbage.

MG2

viktorbravo

Funny stuff folks. Over at UPS we have all these memos that tell us not to deviate from the LIDO flight plan unless its for safety of flight, because LIDO knows best. Well, all of us know from real world experience that it aint exactly so all of the time.

Bottom line is for me, until I get a little somethin, somethin in my paycheck for saving fuel, I will just fly LIDO as the memo tells me to.

Like I told the last FO that I flew with, "Son, I appreciate all this free dual you are giving me about how to fly my airplane, but bear in mind that neither myself, nor UPS is paying you any extra to do it.

Toccata

You guys are using LIDO? What is your opinion of it? I think we over here at FredEx are kinda mixed.

viktorbravo

IMO the LIDO flight plans can be very good, if they are generated close to when the flight actually departs.

I've seen instances where a UPS aircraft going to the same destination, same 555 cost index, some miles ahead of us was going direct, and we were following all the twists and turns in the LIDO flight plan. I'll be damned if we didnt actually pass him up and arrive at destination a full 5 minutes ahead of him.

Of course I've seen this work the other way around also.

From what I've seen the LIDO flight plans generated to avoid large areas of weather are very screwed up. Have found that if there is no center weather reroute (which there rarely is at night), you save a hell of alot of time by going direct and driving right up to the weather then deviating as necessary, just like the old days.

I think all said and done, the LIDO stuff doesnt really save the company anything. JMO and of course YMMV.