Suggestion for V1.3 757/767 Fleet

[blaker1984]

Sami,

I have been digging to find if this has been raised so far no so I will raise it as a suggestion in future games.

The Boeing 757/767 should be changed to include common fleet costs. They share the same cockpit, training and other related expenses and are labelled as cross crew qualified by Boeing and its suppliers. In game the planes are treated as if they were from seperate companies. The A330/340 are of the same idea. Under commonality expenses they should be either under the same title and or split but with not such a massive expense difference. My suggestion would be that if you have both types the cheaper of the two being the 757 should receive discounted commonality costs, id say about 50% or merge the two under one plane type but pump up the fleet cost by 20% etc as ideas.

" The 757 and 767 were ultimately designed to share common flight decks and handling characteristics. Similarly configured systems, shared instrumentation, avionics, and flight management systems as the 767 were applied on the 757. Due to their shared design, after a short conversion course, pilots rated in the 757 were also qualified to fly the 767 and vice versa." - Boeing.

Since these planes were designed to feed off each other and all major carriers around the world who operated one, operated the other largely for the fleet/cost flexibility, UA, US, AA, BA, CA, Condor, Delta, ThomasCook, UPS to name a few from both legacy, low-cost and cargo carriers. 

Please consider this when you have the time, I know bigger things are cooking. However for a large or small carrier the discounts could make or break an airline in game.

Thanks for your time,

Blake

[iFlysimX]

Sorry Sami is to busy for Suggestion's sorry 

[alexgv1]

Chill Clement, don't get yourself into trouble. Like was said if you have further problems take them up via PM, you could see people were getting personally upset on both sides in that thread.

BTW Blaker, partial fleet commonality/discounts has been bought up before, including the given example and it will be implemented eventually into a future game version. I agree with you strongly on this and other examples and I think changing the fleet commonality will really enhance the gameplay (i.e. number one on my wishlist too!).

[Powi]

While I agree with the principle, I feel the current solution is a very good compromise. The A330/340 fleet commonality is originally from user requests and I believe they are much closer to each other than 757/767. (But I don't have any docs to prove it) It's also good for the game balance, because A342/3 is not that great plane What have been discussed in the past is the problem where to pull the line. Is there commonality between MD-11 & MD-90? How about MD-90 & B717 or 737 classic & NG? What about BAe 146 & Avro RJ or even Caravelle & Comet? There are countless more aircraft that have some degree of commonality, but I believe it will be utterly impossible task to rate all those commonalities. Only viable solution I can think of is to apply small manufacturer commonality bonus for aircraft from the same manufacturer.

[EYguy]

Commonality between A330 and A340 is actually correct as it is now. If you go to Tolouse and talk to any of the engineers working on the assembly line they will tell you that not only fuselage of A330 (200&300) and 340 (200&300) are the same, but even the wings have the same design.
There are only small differences between from A342/343 and their bigger brothers A345 and A346, but the cross training for all the three families (A330 A340 and A345/6) takes only a few days against the week requested by B757/B767. And the tech specs of the B757 and /67 are just way too different: one is a "narrow body" (even though I would consider it a "medium body"), while the other one is a wide body. Their fuselages and wings are different and the only thing they've in common are the RB211 engines by Rolls Royce.

Airbus has a huge cockpit commonality even from A32X to A330, so 'nuff said... I would lower training costs for 757/767 rather than join them in a single family. And maint cost could actually stay the same...

[alexgv1]

one is a "narrow body" (even though I would consider it a "medium body"), while the other one is a wide body.

757 is as much of a narrow body as the 707, 727, and 737 as they all share the same fuselage cross section (Source: 747 book by Joe Sutter).

767 is barely a wide body at 7-abreast but is so by the fact it is twin aisle (this definition may change if the 797 is twin aisle).

Sure the wings may be different (not sure on that one), but how often do you replace a wing?! Even in a D-check. It's things that the passengers never see that really make commonality like the things which will be changed on a regular bases like avionics (e.g. c/b's).

[blaker1984]

Thanks for the reply guys, I understand completely that it is at the bottom of a very long list of things to be done. Wasnt sure if it was brought up and im glad there is support around it. I know in game that commonality costs drive many people to streamline them. Choosing an engine in the upcoming version is a big boost in that direction, so it was natural that I wanted to see if this was in mind as well. I've been with this game for over 2 years now and thanks to the support team for doing such a great job, I work for an airline as a manager and its a blast to play the game. Thanks again,

Blaker

[swiftus27]

757 is as much of a narrow body as the 707, 727, and 737 as they all share the same fuselage cross section (Source: 747 book by Joe Sutter).

767 is barely a wide body at 7-abreast but is so by the fact it is twin aisle (this definition may change if the 797 is twin aisle).

Sure the wings may be different (not sure on that one), but how often do you replace a wing?! Even in a D-check. It's things that the passengers never see that really make commonality like the things which will be changed on a regular bases like avionics (e.g. c/b's).

What was considered a wide may not be now.  That doesn't change that it was a wide body then, though.  No one expected super jumbos like the A380 or Airbuses new XWB.

I DONT consider a 57 a "medium body" as it has 3-3 seating.  I WOULD consider the 67 a Medium body due to the fact that it is 2-3-2.

[JumboShrimp]

Something to keep in mind when asking for aircraft to be "in common" is that there is only one production queue for the potentially combined group.  I don't think many of the frequent customers of 757 / 767 would want that.

One place where it would definitaly make sense to combine fleeds is 747-400 and 747-8.   There is a ton of components that are common, plus, combining the production lines would not cause any disruption.

[Sami]

-400 and -8 are on same line in v.1.3 (was discussed in another topic just days ago)

[JumboShrimp]

-400 and -8 are on same line in v.1.3 (was discussed in another topic just days ago)

That's great.  I didn't know it was a definite, I thought you were just considering it.

[alexgv1]

What was considered a wide may not be now.  That doesn't change that it was a wide body then, though.  No one expected super jumbos like the A380 or Airbuses new XWB.

Well the first widebody (747) was 10 abreast, the second and third (DC10 and L1011) were also 9 or 10 abreast. The A380 is still 10 abreast (Source: Having been on one with Emirates), and the A350 XWB is going to be 10 abreast (Source: XWB Chief Design Engineer) so not much has changed at the upper end of wide-bodies swiftus. Any wider (without using blended wing technology) and there are real design problems overcoming the profile drag caused by extra width.