Automated Pilots: Limited Beta

[joefremont]

Sam your account you use as an admin is automatically allowed to hire pilots, for your other airline, just let me know the ID and I will turn it on.

Couple problems I have noticed in recording flights, one was flagged wrong airport that landed at the correct airport, one was a divert that actually landed at a different airport, but ended the flight and I had to book another to go to the end.
Plus a few very long range where the system loaded too much payload and fuel and it got flagged as above TOW. Just a few things to work out.

[Alan McGaughey]

Just messing about with one automated pilot at the moment...

One thing I've noticed is that if I load up the automated pilots aircraft with packages, only the packages going directly to the destination are automatically delivered, the packages going to airports within 50nm of the destination do not get unloaded, would there be a way to automatically deliver those packages for automated pilots?

[Cat]

I was under the impression you cannot fly packages with automated pilots. There must be a glitch in the matrix.

You must be loading the airplane with a human pilot at the departure gate (just a guess). If that is the caase, then you can probabably deliver them just as you loaded them, manually with the human pilot once the aircraft in question reached its destination.
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Latest Notes:
Book Flight (no schedule) works just fine for one-off flights and the hotel expense charge kicked in as it should have when my Las Vegas pilot had a layover last night in Detroit.
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@Joe: check PM for other account details please.

[Alan McGaughey]

Hmmm, I have an automated pilot scheduled to fly from EGLL to LLBG and back on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, repeating schedule with a B757-200, I just loaded the aircraft with packages ready for tomorrow's flight, it worked before so will see what happens this time

[Cat]

This is why it's good to have multiple beta testers.

I would have never thought of trying to preload an automated pilots' airplane with packages.

And the purpose of beta testing is to find any loopholes, glitches or other unwanted things in the feature before the full rollout. I just discovered one cannot add legs to an assigned schedule, so one has to remove the pilot from that schedule in order to add more flying time for that pilot.

You CAN however adjust arv/dep times within an assigned schedule by changing those times in the actual flight route(s) the schedule is attached to. My pilot was arriving ahead of time and had a longer stopover than planned so changing the times got him going again almost immediately as he now tries to catch up to the new times departing an hour "late".

[joefremont]

You should be able to fly packages, but the automated pilot will not load them. But it should deliver them if within 50 nm, which it sounds like its not doing so, so thats a bug.

But its a good question if bot pilot should carry packages at all.

I have toyed with the idea that automated pilot should take packages from a local warehouse if the packages are going to there either of their two next scheduled destination, and once they arrive at an airport they will deliver local packages and unless the package. I have always hoped the package system would become a hub and spoke system where pilots could move from remote location to a warehouse and then back out, maybe with big airliners doing the long hauls between hubs. I had though the bot pilots could do the drudgery of moving packages from the warehouse in the hub to the end of the spokes, as long as there is a human collecting the packages in the first place.

There is merit to the idea that if a package on a plane is not going to the pilots destination(s) they should not fly, but it can get very complicated, which may be why I have not done anything with it yet.

BTW, if your pilot has 'Manage Cargo' permission they don't have to be at the airport to load cargo into an aircraft or warehouse.

[Cat]

The only downside I can see to the automated pilots hauling packages is the squeezing of the little guy as the big airlines with plenty of platinum accounts to hire automated pilots in droves could conceivably wipe the package system clean. Or I may be just yapping without any evidence to support my theory too..... LOL I don't have anything to lose or gain whether the bots carry packages or not.

Personally, I do not rely on packages to make profits. If they are available (for me - not my bots), I'll take em as a bonus, but many times between major hubs the pickings are already pretty slim.

I did do an experiment where I pre-loaded a CRJ with packages for Saginaw from Green Bay to Detroit and am curious if on the bots' final leg of the day to Saginaw, if they get delivered. I can also see the upside to playing the package game with bots so I will hold my opinion at "neutral" on the subject.

UPDATE: Yes they got delivered automatically when the bot plane arrived at the package destination on the final "out and back" of the day.

[joefremont]

Question, how much should it cost for an airline to change the home base of one of its pilots? I figure they are going to have to pay some relocation cost and some pilots may not be happy to have to uproot their spouses and kids from the community they are living in and their family and friends.

I suppose there will be a chance that the pilot may refuse and threaten to resign if told to move.

[Cat]

50% of the cost to hire a new one (of the same rank/type rating) at the desired new location. So it would be cheaper to move an existing pilot than hire a new one.

Depending on your code, maybe add a seniority thing? Less chance of them quitting when moving a newer hire than say the first hire who is senior on the AP list. Or that's just getting too complicated.

[joefremont]

In doing my testing, I did discover you need a lot more pilots than planes. Since a pilot can only do 100 hours per month or 25 hours per week (average), to keep a plane moving all day seven days a week you could need several pilots. I have increased the limit bot pilots per platinum account to 20 but even then you may only be able to manage 5-10 aircraft.

In addition to increasing the pilot limits I have also added some table sorting to the schedules/legs/pilots/routes tables so you can find things easier. I have also fixed the delivery with 50nm for packages bug.

[Cat]

20 pilots is PLENTY. I haven't used all 10 yet and am finding it starting to become more like a full time dispatcher job. LOL It is better for sure to set schedules and let them run than trying to pick and choose individual flights for pilots.

[Cat]

MORE NOTES: One cannot schedule a pilot if the aircraft type in question is either in maintenance or enroute from another location. My latest pilot will be flying a CRJ9 that is being standard transferred from AZ to MI and this is the only thing I can think of that keeps me from scheduling this pilot as the CRJ9 schedule does not even come up as an option probably due to "no aircraft type at the departure airport" ?? Just FYI He doesn't head out until Wednesday so we'll see what happens when the bird arrives in Detroit.

[joefremont]

Humm, I wanted to prevent a pilot from be assigned to a schedule they can not fly, so I call the bookable aircraft function to see to see if the pilot can fly a plane than can do the schedule but that function only reports on the aircraft at the pilots airport.

I have run into that in my own testing, I create a schedule to fly the aircraft for the second half of the day and then want to assign a pilot to it, but all the aircraft are all out on their morning flights.

I agree its not optimal.

[joefremont]

I made a change to the code where you add legs to a schedule.
First all the legs are now sorted by departure time by default, second there is now color coding next to the select radio button to help make building schedules easier.

Green if the departing flight has the same flight number as the last incoming leg.
Gray if the departure time of the flight is before the arrival time of the last leg.
Yellow when the number of the flight matches the flight number of an different incoming flight.
Orange when the number of the flight matches the flight number of an different incoming flight and the flight departs before the incoming leg arrived.
Light blue if the flight departs within 90 minutes of the last legs arrival.

This logic assumes of course that the schedule will happen in a single day.

[Cat]

Quick Question: With "local timezones" in play in VA settings, are all the arv/dep times local to the VA home hub or do we need to do the math and figure in time zone changes from say New York to Los Angeles?

I have a few flights that skip back and forth between EST and CST so just curious.