Lease aircraft C-Checks while on sale - Discuss...

[ACDennison]

I was thinking earlier it might be sensible change the C (and possibly D) Check mechanic for aircraft on sale.  In this gameworld I've done quite well thus far, and made an effort to help out other players by making available my older (4 years+) aircraft as I perform rolling updates, thus ensuring that players restarting have access to some good types in the 50-120 seat turboprop market at good prices.

I have no real problems with performing C-Checks on aircraft that are returned just before a check or with damaged aircraft (risks of leasing them out), but I am increasingly finding that I am spending substantial amounts of cash (and time!) keeping C-Checks current on aircraft I have on sale.  Given that C-Checks are (in the real world) based on hours flown not just time, I would like to propose for discussion the idea that when on sale the C-Check (and possibly D-Check) 'clock' should not run down, and the time remaining should instead be frozen.

This isn't really taking the risk out of leasing, but it would make leasing aircraft slightly more profitable without placing the burden on customer airlines.  Obviously airlines like mine do not need to make a ton off leasing, but then again if it isn't worth it we could all just unload our aircraft for sale only and forget them - so I think getting a bit of balance is important.  I very much see leasing my fleets out as bringing something to the game and supporting smaller airlines, and want to continue to do so - but not to the point where it actually costs me money, or takes up substantoial chunks of time!

This change would also prevent the complaints I've heard in some gameworlds of lots of aircraft on the market that are out of C-check validity... thus keeping the market more acccessible too.

So overall, what do people think?

[Curse]

Feature request forum and +1 from my side

[knobbygb]

Sounds good here too and much more like real life.  But if something like this were to happen, why not change the whole maintenance schedule system  to be flight-hours based?  It would removed the need to schedule B-checks as they'd just happen when they were due (and does ANYBODY actually schedule them for a different date/time than their A-Checks anyway?) and would do away with that once-a-month low-profit week when every a/c goes for maint. at the same time. A-Checks should probably remain weekly for simplicity but the rest could surely use a more realistic system of flight hours.

[alexgv1]

Sounds good here too and much more like real life.  But if something like this were to happen, why not change the whole maintenance schedule system  to be flight-hours based?  It would removed the need to schedule B-checks as they'd just happen when they were due (and does ANYBODY actually schedule them for a different date/time than their A-Checks anyway?) and would do away with that once-a-month low-profit week when every a/c goes for maint. at the same time. A-Checks should probably remain weekly for simplicity but the rest could surely use a more realistic system of flight hours.

Yes I think the OPs idea is a good quick fix until the above posters idea is raised in this thread on aircraft cycles/hours.

[ACDennison]

I agree with alex - I think keeping things simple up to a point is best - I can understand why sami gets us to use time-based not hours-based checks, not least by allowing people to know roughly when checks will come up without monitoring things in too much detail.  It makes it more gamer-friendly for non-industry types.  

In reality of course check have both flight hour and absolute periods which vary wildy between types, modelling all that would be very complex.  I'd enjoy challenge games with more realistic checks, but that'd be a lot of work by sami for limited application.  As for B-Checks - yes, I have done all sorts with these depending on the type of flights flown, combining them with A-Checks at the begining, middle or end of the B-Check, or even doing it on a completely different day on long-haul routes.

Also, if we were to get support for this change, sami is far more likely to make a simpler change than a more complex one.  Initally though I'm keen to hear views on the original post before directly requesting a change.

[ACDennison]

Just had another minor thought on this - not having to take aircraft off-sale for C-Checks would also stop lease aircraft in checks screwing up fleet utilisation figures, as it is my fleet utilisation dips whenever I take a few aircraft off-sale to work on them, as they have empty schedules.

[schro]

Just had another minor thought on this - not having to take aircraft off-sale for C-Checks would also stop lease aircraft in checks screwing up fleet utilisation figures, as it is my fleet utilisation dips whenever I take a few aircraft off-sale to work on them, as they have empty schedules.

https://www.airwaysim.com/forum/index.php/topic,18320.0.html