Speed Help

[Shaun Patterson]

I am currently flying the AFG Beechcraft KingAir 300 (A marvelous aircraft )

I am flying from Newcastle (EGNT) in the north of England to Bilbao (LEBB) in northern Spain.

Even though I am flying at FL240, I have been restricted to 250knots.

The problem is, I don't understand FSPassengers' In-flight report Average speed.

My Airspeed indicator says 240knots (True Airspeed, Indicated airspeed is way lower speed)
My GPS ground speed says 278knots
However the FSP average speed is 259knots and climbing, so I'm afraid of getting the over 250knot penalty.

Will I get the penalty? Or is the FSP average speed perhaps ground speed?

[Shaun Patterson]

The Kneeboard flightplan says I'm going 283knots average...

[drgullen]

As far as I know Shaun, you only get that penalty when you exceed 250 below 10,000 feet. Once you pass that altitude, you can fly as fast as your
airplane's speed limits. I don't know about the averages...never cared to look at that, to be honest.

[Leftcoaster]

Disregard the average speeds FsP generates. FsP appears to compute all distances as straight lines, the shortest distance between
departure and destination airports. This generally results in higher average speeds since generally flights in FS are longer due to
departure and arrival procedures, navigation along V and J airways and diversions due to weather, effects of winds etc.

Therefore the FsP flight report is of limited utility for referencing speed but useful for calculating fuel burn at the conclusion of a flight since
it uses time rather than distance in its fuel calculations.

The >250 knot prohibition below 10,000 ASL is indicated airspeed so a 240 KIAS decent should not incur a penalty but a 240 KTAS
decent probably will. Realistically, before the days of GPS your TAS and ground speed were calculated estimates only since there are so
many variables involved. If you choose to use TAS (an FS gimmick generally unavailable to most pilots in most aircraft) it becomes
easier to run into speed related problems.

[Shaun Patterson]

Ah thanks Leftcoaster, your right. I don't actually use TAS, it was just a concern. Anyway the flight was great, ran into some crappy turbulence
above Nantes. I landed with a -140ft/m Kiss, and I had no penalty! That's great news. So now it's full steam.... ahem, propulsion ahead!