The "Day in the Life Challenge"

Peter Grey
Posts: 5716
Joined: Tue Oct 12, 2010 3:21 pm

The "Day in the Life Challenge"

Post by Peter Grey »

Hello Everyone,

Now that we have a bit more airspace to play with a large number of users have brought out their heavy metal and done their simulated airline pilot routines.

With that in mind I decided to create a series of flights that mimic a "maximum legal duty day" for an airline pilot (using current FAR 121 rules).

So here are the "duty rules" I'm using:

Maximum Total Flight Time (aircraft moves after engine start to engine shutdown): 9:00
Maximum Duty Day: 12:00 (this is correct for the number of legs in the trip)

So here is your schedule for the day:

Show Time: 11:00 PST

Flight 1: KEKO-KSLC
Depart: 1130
Arrive: 1330 MST

Flight 2: KSLC-KDEN
Depart: 1400
Arrive: 1520

Flight 3: KDEN-KMTJ
Depart: 1550
Arrive: 1650

Flight 4: KMTJ-KPHX
Depart: 1720
Arrive: 1850

Flight 5: KPHX-KSAN
Depart: 1920
Arrive: 1930 PST

Flight 6: KSAN-KSEA
Depart: 2000
Arrive: 2300

So, that's a maximum duty day (for real life airline pilots, I'm aware this schedule has 0 room for error and as a result would never actually be scheduled :D ). All flights exist in the real world and are operated by at least 1 airline.

So for those who are interested here are the rules:

1. This is a 1 day, 1 sitting, real time simulation of an airline pilot day. There's no pausing the clock or coming back tomorrow. Need a lunch break? Sure you have 30 minutes, just make sure you preflight in that time as well.
Exception: If you have a sim crash you may "rewind the clock" back to either a save point you have made or the start of the flight leg.
2. You must depart each airport, land at each airport, and spend at least 30 minutes at the gate between each flight (boarding and deboarding time). You are not required to strictly stay to the schedule.
3. For checking purposes you must log each flight on peaware to get credit.
4. There are no restrictions on the airplane you use, but it must be an airplane that could do this schedule in 9 hours of flight time and must be able to safely operate at each airport. The schedules were created using transport category jet schedules. You may swap airplanes along the way.
5. The actual start time doesn't matter (simply adjust the times on the schedule above).
6. While the part 121 duty day limit in this scenario is 12 hours it can be extended by 2 hours (to a limit of 14) due to issues along the way. You must complete the sequence in 14 hours. The sequence starts when you start to "pre flight the plane" and ends when you engage the parking brake at the gate in SEA.
7. Due to the length and time constraints people have there is no requirement to do all flights during PE operating hours, however at least 4 must be 100% completed during PE operating hours.
8. Weather is not defined but should be realistic to a weather pattern that could happen (no 100 knot tailwinds every leg).
9. The in game time you use does not matter, but once set should not be changed and allowed to normally progress.

Successful pilots get a reward of value yet to be determined (but likely to be in the 0-0$ range)

Optional Hard Code Mode:

For those who want a little more realism add the following rules:

1. You must complete the sequence in 9 hours of flight time with the following exception (the 9 hour flight limit is a hard limit, you can't extend it like the duty day with the limited exception below).
- Exception: If at KSAN the total flight time to that point + your reasonably scheduled flight time to KSEA is under 9 hours you may depart. If you end up flying over 9 hours due to enroute delays to KSEA this does not count as a violation of this rule.
2. You may not depart early. You must depart at the times listed (adjusted to your start time).
3. Real world weather must be used
-Exception: If the weather is below minimums you may raise the weather to be at minimums.

Optional Iron Man Mode:

1 last mode for those who want 100% realism. This mode just adds a couple more rules:

1. You must start your preflight between 0700-1259 local time. FAA duty limits depend on when your day starts. The duty rules listed above assume you start between these times, so start between these times.
2. Complete the entire sequence during operating hours.
Note: Functionally this means you must start between 0730-1100 Pacific.
Exception: If due to your location you cannot comply with rules 1 and 2, rule 2 takes priority and you can ignore rule 1.
3. Only use 1 type of airplane. Note airplanes that are covered under 1 type rating may be swapped into (for example fly a CRJ2 and CRJ7, or a B757 and B767)
4. At KMTJ you must "swap airplanes". This means you need to make the airplane cold and dark and then preflight it again. For those of you using rule 3 to use 2 different models of aircraft you must swap into model 2 at KMTJ.
5. Run your simulator time to match real world time.

To get credit reply to this post with the following:
1. Peaware links to your flights.
2. Total duty day
3. Departure and arrival times for each flight.
4. Total flight time (this is not required to be under 9 hours)
5. Anything else you want to note
6. What mode you accomplished (Regular, Hard Core, or Iron Man).

That's it.

Enjoy!
Last edited by Peter Grey on Thu Feb 09, 2017 8:28 pm, edited 9 times in total.
Reason: Rule tweaks
Peter Grey
PilotEdge Director of Quality Assurance and Operations
peter@pilotedge.net
Peter Grey
Posts: 5716
Joined: Tue Oct 12, 2010 3:21 pm

Re: The "Day in the Life Challenge"

Post by Peter Grey »

Well it took someone 5 minutes to work out a flaw.

So a couple edits to the main post which are summarized below:

Weather:

For normal mode:

Weather is not defined, however it should be reasonably realistic as a weather pattern that could happen (no 100 knot tailwinds every leg).

For Hard Core and Iron Man Modes:

Real world weather must be used except if an airport is forecast to be below minimums you may raise the weather to be at minimums.
Peter Grey
PilotEdge Director of Quality Assurance and Operations
peter@pilotedge.net
Tim Krajcar
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Location: KPDX
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Re: The "Day in the Life Challenge"

Post by Tim Krajcar »

This looks awesome. I'm planning to take a stab at it and live stream the whole thing, all day. Looks like either 2/3 or 2/10, I'll post more when I confirm with the boss :D Got some prep work to do, but I'm stoked!
Tim Krajcar
Live streams at http://twitch.tv/Tim_PE
View past flights on YouTube
Tim Krajcar
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Re: The "Day in the Life Challenge"

Post by Tim Krajcar »

All is scheduled. I'll be live-streaming my attempt to complete the challenge, full iron man mode, on my Twitch on Saturday, February 11, starting at around 9:00AM Pacific Time (UTC-8) and continuing well into the evening. I have a bunch of awesome giveaways lined up to help pass time at cruise, so stop in for some or all of it, help keep me company, and let's see if this uncertified amateur can survive A Day In The Life...
Tim Krajcar
Live streams at http://twitch.tv/Tim_PE
View past flights on YouTube
Steven Maddox
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Joined: Thu Mar 29, 2012 8:42 pm

Re: The "Day in the Life Challenge"

Post by Steven Maddox »

I'm a real airline pilot based in DEN and would be more than willing to provide some real schedules for you guys if you want to keep doing things like this. I'd say only about 50% of the flying I do would be within the coverage area, but I can dig through our bid package and find some cool stuff I'm sure!
Steven Maddox
FAA ATP ERJ-170/190, CFII
stevekirks
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Re: The "Day in the Life Challenge"

Post by stevekirks »

Bonus idea?

Run SmartCopilot and have a "person" in the right seat in case you run long or have a bio emergency.

- Can someone post some text for typical cabin announcements or a link to those?

I got cold sweats just reading Peter's post...
Steve Kirks (sKirks on Twitch)
KSGF--I-10 rated
Student Pilot
I invented the Alphabet Challenge, what's your excuse?
Alphabet Challenge
Tim Krajcar
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Re: The "Day in the Life Challenge"

Post by Tim Krajcar »

stevekirks wrote:Run SmartCopilot and have a "person" in the right seat in case you run long or have a bio emergency.
I would love to do this, but every time I've flown with SmartCopilot there's been problems: always an extra 45 minutes on the front trying to figure out why something's not working, or a Gizmo crash in the 737, or one pilot's frame rate goes to crap, etc... It's still fun to play around with and I'm sure the experience can be improved with more troubleshooting, but I think this challenge is as much a test of sim reliability as it is of pilot endurance, and SmartCopilot definitely doesn't improve things in that regard from what I've seen :cry:
Tim Krajcar
Live streams at http://twitch.tv/Tim_PE
View past flights on YouTube
Tim Krajcar
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Re: The "Day in the Life Challenge"

Post by Tim Krajcar »

Submitting my claim for Day In The Life Iron Man badge #1.

Per my schedule tracking sheet (which future challengees are welcome to copy), we logged a total of 7 hours and 38 minutes of flying time (including taxi), with a total duty day of 11 hours 55 minutes.

With breaks removed, the edited video of the challenge is just over 11 hours . I expect the Challenge Examiners Board to comprehensively review it, of course! ;)

This was a ton of fun to do and I would encourage anyone thinking about trying it to do so. It was super awesome to have so many people watching live and interacting in chat. As usual, we made some mistakes, learned some things, and overall had a great time!

Image
Tim Krajcar
Live streams at http://twitch.tv/Tim_PE
View past flights on YouTube
stealthbob
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Location: Ottawa, Ontario

Re: The "Day in the Life Challenge"

Post by stealthbob »

Impressive Tim, well done!
Shawn Goldsworthy
Posts: 514
Joined: Sun Nov 07, 2010 9:23 pm
Location: Nova Scotia, Canada

Re: The "Day in the Life Challenge"

Post by Shawn Goldsworthy »

Here is my claim for the Iron Man Challenge. Times rolled back to pilotedge opening time.

Image

Show time: 07:45 PDT

KEKO-KSLC - 0815/0904 TT: 0:49
KSLC-KDEN - 0945/1058 TT 1:13
KDEN-KMTJ - 1135/1232 TT: 0:57 (An engine fire on this leg made things interesting)
Cold/dark startup, switch from B763 to B752
KMTJ-KPHX - 1305/1422 TT: 1:17
KPHX-KSAN - 1505/1608 TT 1:03
KSAN-KSEA - 1645/1925 TT: 2:40

Total flight time 7:59
Total duty day 11:45


That is a lot of flying!
Shawn Goldsworthy
PilotEdge ATCS
Image
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