Departure and arrival time/date

jcboliveira · Post by **jcboliveira** » Tue Jun 22, 2004 10:20 am

I'm going to make a new fsacars version that supports the things asked by globecargo in the flight report. Just want to confirm one thing: That the date and time asked in the flight report is local not UTC.

Post by **nwadc10** » Tue Jun 22, 2004 10:25 am

Of course I'm not in charge but I'd say UTC. The entire airline industry runs off UTC so I figure we shouldn't be any different. Plus it simplifies things and reduces the risk of mistakes. Justin

jcboliveira · Post by **jcboliveira** » Tue Jun 22, 2004 10:54 am

That is my doubt. I think it depens if it's IATA or ICAO. IATA is local and ICAO is UTC. FSacars allways uses UTC time and the date is UTC related that is for keeping everything in ICAO but in FS the date is local related. Some great confusion.

Post by **nwadc10** » Tue Jun 22, 2004 12:38 pm

" Interesting, I hadn't heard of IATA and ICAO using time differently. Where did you get that information? When reporting times in real aviation personally, it has always been in UTC, whether it's filing a flight plan, getting a clearance (Void Time, Time Now, No-Later-Than time), reporting points, etc. The real ACARS I've come across w/ different airlines always reported in UTC. Even the little Saab 340's which, in Mesaba Airlines' case, doesn't have ACARS, the crew reports Out, Off, On, In times via radio in UTC. I'm interested in where you have seen the times reported in local. Weather reports and charts also use UTC. Times are displayed as local with respect to the general public (it would be much too confusing otherwise). This has been a confusing topic for a while now

Justin "

Post by **nwadc10** » Tue Jun 22, 2004 1:25 pm

I think I may have just realized your dilema. There is only one date in FS which as you said is based off Local time. It looks like the day is reported as the Nth day of the year. Could you convert that local date to a UTC date? I'm brainstorming to come up with a formula. I'm getting close but don't have much time to work on it. If you figure something out please let me know. Justin

jcboliveira · Post by **jcboliveira** » Tue Jun 22, 2004 3:55 pm

" Of course all the acars messages, everything in FSacars is UTC however some time tables aren't, when you go in to a plane as a passanger the hour is always local. Look in to this time table Serial Flight# From To Opr. Days Dep. Arr. Notes Equipment 1 S4 121 LIS PDL 1567 06:30 07:45 313 This is a IATA time table for SATA international and adopted by SATA International VA. The IATA code is S4 the ICAO is RZO The departure is LIS and PDL the ICAO is LPPT LPPD The hours is always local (the actual departure is 5:30 UTC and the arrival is 8:45 UTC) The equipment is 313 but the ICAO is A313. I know that the date in FS is days after 1/1 but days in local date the way of doing things in FSacars is that the user of FSacars is a pilot so everything must be ICAO that means UTC. However I know that some VA give to the pilot the times tables in IATA and that's a confusion. "

chplt · Post by **chplt** » Wed Jun 23, 2004 3:10 pm

" If I might add a bit to this discussion. First, you can set the time and date in FS to anything you want it to be. So that removes that problem. GMT, or UTC or ""Z"" is pretty much the Universal time used in Air Transportation. A schedule published for the general public will almost ALWAYS use Local Times, both at Departure and Arrival points, but the ""Internal"" schedule used by Dispatch will almost always be in UTC, or maybe both UTC and Local, but UTC is the controlling time. On the other hand, I don't know of ANY Air Traffic Control Division that uses anything BUT UTC. It just won't work otherwise. There are SO many Time Zones, and exceptions to Time Zones, and Modifications to Time Zones that a Scheduler would go insane in record time trying to keep Flights going to the right places at the right time. Best suggestion is just to set the FS Clock to the correct date and time, and go from there. Russ Spalding P1063 "

Steve B · Post by **Steve B** » Wed Jun 23, 2004 3:39 pm

" I agree with sticking with UTC time, I just started using FSACARS and beforehand filing my trip reports became rather confusing with the time zone changes during flight. UTC will always be a constant. It would definitely help alleviate some of the confusion for other pilots who may not be using a flight logging utility. "

Post by **nwadc10** » Wed Jun 23, 2004 3:54 pm

" Russ, The problem that is in question is the fact that FS, internally, doesn't use the date as you see it in the menu's. Internally, FS uses the number of days that have passed in the year in the local time zone. The name of this type of calender escapes me right now but for instance, today (June 23rd in CST) is the 175th day of 2004. Because the date is taken from the local time zone, FS considers the date to be the 175th day of the year over the entire world. In the real world that isn't true because somewhere in the world it is the 176th day of the year. If we take Zulu time, which we'd also want the date associated with GMT, it's possible to fly on the 175th day of the year which is reported by FS while our Zulu time is actually the 176th day of the year. Result, the flight is reported on the wrong day. In short, we need to convert the local date, anywhere in the world, to the date associated with GMT. I think I may have come up with the formula and I've emailed Jose. Justin "

chplt · Post by **chplt** » Wed Jun 23, 2004 8:31 pm

Justin: As a very wise man once told me...... It is a wasted day if you don't learn something.... Thanks Russ

jcboliveira · Post by **jcboliveira** » Thu Jun 24, 2004 6:53 pm

" I will make the UTC more explicit in FSAcars it will take sometime since I'm changing the user interface. The problem with UTC are the UTC jumps bug, since the timezonefix 3.0 the problem is much better but I must be sure that the FSacars UTC jumps account doesn't get in the way specially in day changes. Regards "