I’ve been using SimBrief for quite some time now, and it’s really a great piece of software to generate extremely realistic Flight Plans. But there is one huge thing that makes me want to consider using other FPL generators. The fact that it does not take into account SID/STAR restorations. It’s been a pet peeve of mine for years, but today I finally had enough when the software wanted me to climb to 10,300 ft within 3 minutes of my departure. I was going to fly a FedEx MD-11F from Memphis International Airport (KMEM) to Boston General Edward Lawrence Logan Airport (KBOS) and it wanted me to fly via the CRSON 7 departure. The first waypoint in this SID is SLONN, which is 3 minutes away from the airport. My OFP said I had to be at this WPT at 10300 ft.
I had enough, this isn’t the first time this has happened either. Many times I had to abandon a flight idea because SimBrief set altitudes that were way above a SID’s altitude restriction. Not to mention this would be impossible since according to this tutorial video, the proper climb procedure is to climb slowly by having my aircraft pitch at 10° when I am 1000 ft AGL above the airport. Is there any Flight Planning software that actually takes into account the altitude restrictions and initiates realistic climbing?
This answer doesn’t really answer your question, but looking at the charts, it’s an unrestricted climb unless subjected to ATC vectors. I took a 50% loaded MD-11F, set the climb power to 87% N1, and pitched for 250kts. Hit 10.3 just as I was about to cross the fix, so, it’s pretty doable.
Given the power setting and aircraft load, I pitched at 5000-5200fpm to hold 250kts at a constant power setting.
It sounds like a lot, but some planes are capable of climbing quite well; 87% is a pretty standard power setting per my understanding for climb, so, the MD-11 in game is pretty capable of a climber.
Wow. I’m guessing that’s almost irrelevant for an MD-11F… If the crew is expecting it, have fun with that crotch rocket.
I’m wondering how that would feel in a passenger cabin… I may understand wrong, but i thought most passenger flights kept to 2000 or less, for cabin pressure rate of change.
It’ll depend on the crew and load, per my understanding. My flight a few weeks back out of IAH was doing 4000 FPM on our climb out for a while, and it didn’t feel that steep to be honest. I didn’t even know how fast we were going up until I checked the flight tracker log after.
You’ll usually see things around the 2-3000 FPM marker, though.
