Flying Penguin Club

FSE and PE make for a powerful combination
zengei
Posts: 107
Joined: Sun Jan 18, 2015 2:19 pm
Location: Bronx, NY

Re: Flying Penguin Club

Post by zengei »

For other X-Plane users I've made a quick scenery for L19 for the Scenery Gateway. Should be available for download once it gets moderator approval, and will probably ship in the version of X-Plane after 10.40.

Screenshot: http://i.imgur.com/lCfzl7Q.png
crum
Posts: 70
Joined: Tue Mar 18, 2014 6:06 pm
Location: Russia
Contact:

Re: Flying Penguin Club

Post by crum »

zengei wrote:For other X-Plane users I've made a quick scenery for L19 for the Scenery Gateway. Should be available for download once it gets moderator approval, and will probably ship in the version of X-Plane after 10.40.

Screenshot: http://i.imgur.com/lCfzl7Q.png
Wow! That's great! Thanks. Will update the top post now.

Hope, someone could do the same for FSX/P3D.
Artem Crum
EASA PPL(A) SEL, not current
davidspreckeriii
Posts: 62
Joined: Sat Feb 21, 2015 12:24 am

Re: Flying Penguin Club

Post by davidspreckeriii »

Is there any benefit to being in a group when you own your own plane? I personally don't have models to fly that your group has, but in fse I own a B407. Didn't know how it worked for the group if I flew it.
zengei
Posts: 107
Joined: Sun Jan 18, 2015 2:19 pm
Location: Bronx, NY

Re: Flying Penguin Club

Post by zengei »

crum,

In the accounting shouldn't fuel costs also be discounted since it's not an additional expense to use fuel already aboard the aircraft. Using that standard and with the jobs I did today, it seems there's a net loss of $914.21 for the group: http://goo.gl/N4DGLd

The booking fees seem to be killing it, reading up on how they work, they don't seem to make an awful lot of sense to me. Every additional green assignment results in +1% in the booking fee, which means a B190 filled with single passenger green assignments like I did results in 19% for booking fees. I question the logic of this math; if you have an airliner loaded the same way that could carry 120 passengers. Does that mean the booking fee would be 120%? Shouldn't the booking fee just be a fixed percentage of the "ticket" price?

The way it works means taking 1 group of 5 passengers is vastly different than taking 5 groups of 1 passenger, which again, doesn't seem to make a whole lot of sense.
Keith Smith
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Re: Flying Penguin Club

Post by Keith Smith »

You're assuming 1 pax per booking. The booking could have multiple pax in a single job. This is why a single job with 5 pax doesn't pay 5 times as much as a single passenger job. Peter did the math on this, though, you're still better off with single pax jobs up to around 30 jobs.

As I said, though, it does make it very hard to work out the 'right' % for a group to take vs the pilots when the cost of executing a given flight is completely variable based on how many jobs are on the flight.
crum
Posts: 70
Joined: Tue Mar 18, 2014 6:06 pm
Location: Russia
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Re: Flying Penguin Club

Post by crum »

davidspreckeriii wrote:Is there any benefit to being in a group when you own your own plane? I personally don't have models to fly that your group has, but in fse I own a B407. Didn't know how it worked for the group if I flew it.
If you're flying your own aircraft it's no sense being in group. Unless I'm missing something.
zengei wrote:In the accounting shouldn't fuel costs also be discounted since it's not an additional expense to use fuel already aboard the aircraft. Using that standard and with the jobs I did today, it seems there's a net loss of $914.21 for the group: http://goo.gl/N4DGLd
The fuel doesn't appear from nowhere, even if you refuel at L19. So, in any case we need to count these expenses for group.
zengei wrote: The booking fees seem to be killing it, reading up on how they work, they don't seem to make an awful lot of sense to me. Every additional green assignment results in +1% in the booking fee, which means a B190 filled with single passenger green assignments like I did results in 19% for booking fees. I question the logic of this math; if you have an airliner loaded the same way that could carry 120 passengers. Does that mean the booking fee would be 120%? Shouldn't the booking fee just be a fixed percentage of the "ticket" price?

The way it works means taking 1 group of 5 passengers is vastly different than taking 5 groups of 1 passenger, which again, doesn't seem to make a whole lot of sense.
Yes, weird system. And I have no idea of workaround here. Any thoughts?
Artem Crum
EASA PPL(A) SEL, not current
Keith Smith
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Joined: Sat Oct 09, 2010 8:38 pm
Location: Pompton Plains, NJ
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Re: Flying Penguin Club

Post by Keith Smith »

Unless the group has FBO's that are generating private jobs just for the group, then I'm still not seeing the attraction to groups. Getting access to airplanes is incredibly easy, there are so many for rent around Socal, I've never had much of an issue getting access to a type of airplane that I want to fly, or at least something close.

Alternatively, set it up so that the group gets all the money, then pay the pilots a high percentage of the net profit from the flight, rather than them taking a fixed percentage right off the top.

The only value-add of the group (outside of private jobs) is that it allows for guaranteed access to group-owned aircraft, I suppose. What is that worth as a pilot? To me...not much since access isn't a problem. But, others might be all over it.
crum
Posts: 70
Joined: Tue Mar 18, 2014 6:06 pm
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Re: Flying Penguin Club

Post by crum »

Keith Smith wrote:As I said, though, it does make it very hard to work out the 'right' % for a group to take vs the pilots when the cost of executing a given flight is completely variable based on how many jobs are on the flight.
Now I'm starting to understand what is the problem you're talking about. From current statistics 70-75% pilot fees work well for small 4-6 seats aircrafts and fail to work with 1900D, especially if it's not loaded up to the limit.
Keith Smith wrote:The only value-add of the group (outside of private jobs) is that it allows for guaranteed access to group-owned aircraft, I suppose. What is that worth as a pilot? To me...not much since access isn't a problem. But, others might be all over it.
The group-to-pilot 'contract' is: you rent the airplane at the lower price in exchange you're going to fly it often and will not rent the same type from other owner. Group gets smaller income than it would get from normal rent prices, but more frequent and stable payments.

And from the emotional side flying the group/club airplane is close to owning the aircraft and stimulates to follow the persistent position logic of FSE.
Artem Crum
EASA PPL(A) SEL, not current
zengei
Posts: 107
Joined: Sun Jan 18, 2015 2:19 pm
Location: Bronx, NY

Re: Flying Penguin Club

Post by zengei »

crum wrote:The fuel doesn't appear from nowhere, even if you refuel at L19. So, in any case we need to count these expenses for group.
Fair, but fuel, like maintenance, is an unavoidable recurring cost. If I'm choosing between a flight 100NM north versus one 100NM south, the fuel costs for each are going to be a wash, and thus irrelevant to choosing between the two. My goal in accounting for profits/losses is to gauge the effects of my assignment choices, like this whole booking fee structure. If I made different assignment choices I could minimize the booking fees, but I can't really affect the fuel costs a great deal.
crum wrote:Yes, weird system. And I have no idea of workaround here. Any thoughts?
From searching around, it seems the booking fee structure is a gameplay mechanic to encourage the use of smaller aircraft. Unfortunately it breaks player intuition and leads to perverse gameplay behavior such as potentially being charged booking fees in excess of total income. The only thing I can suggest is to go with it and attempt to minimize the number of assignments on any given flight. I know I'll be keeping it in mind for any future B190 flights.
Peter Grey
Posts: 5716
Joined: Tue Oct 12, 2010 3:21 pm

Re: Flying Penguin Club

Post by Peter Grey »

From searching around, it seems the booking fee structure is a gameplay mechanic to encourage the use of smaller aircraft. Unfortunately it breaks player intuition and leads to perverse gameplay behavior such as potentially being charged booking fees in excess of total income. The only thing I can suggest is to go with it and attempt to minimize the number of assignments on any given flight. I know I'll be keeping it in mind for any future B190 flights.
Assuming that all jobs are in the similar price range it takes over 25 green jobs to end up in a situation where adding a job costs money.

I use a spreadsheet to track it all (I fly a 50 seat C-46 so I can run into this issue), and it's rarely a concern.

In the B1900 it's nearly impossible to run into this situation. The only way it would happen is if you have 15+ jobs at the high end of the green job costs (usually around a grand), and a couple jobs at the low end (couple hundred). However even in that case if you swap out the low payers for high payers you end up ahead.

As a proof, here is the math for adding a 26th job when you have 25 green jobs at $1,000 a pop.

So at 25 jobs:

Job Income = $25,000
10% FBO Fee = $2,500
Green Job "Booking Fee" (@ 25%) = $6,250

Net Income Before Airplane Expenses = $16,250

Add a 26th job

Job Income = $26,000
10% FBO Fee = $2,600
Green Job "Booking Fee" (@ 26%) = $6,760

Net Income Before Airspace Expenses = $16,640

So you still make $400 by adding that 26th job.
Peter Grey
PilotEdge Director of Quality Assurance and Operations
peter@pilotedge.net
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