We've anxiously awaited updates of the more significant panels and gauges developed originally for FS98, but FS2000 presents some "interesting" challenges to panel designers. Tony D'Ambrosio made his "Vector Design Technology" gauges (and hence his and Roy Chaffin's panels) compatible with FS2000 in a previous release—and added the FMC/Planner that AVSIM Online Associate Editor Pardave Lehry described in his RealCRT Review this past April. In fact, the only thing Pardave noted in that review that he "didn't like" was "the inability to couple the FMC with the autopilot at this stage." That's changed now with this update that adds a working Flight Management Computer (FMC). There are minor refinements in Version 1.2 of Navagational Data 2000 as well. With this release what was admitedly a 'limited' FMC has come to life—and so we decided to see how this current offering stacks up with the rapidly emerging FMC genre.

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I felt it would be more helpful to share impressions of this flight planner and FMC by example, rather than to enumerate Tony's panel and gauge features—which are well known to most readers and are unchanged in this release. Accordingly I teamed Tony's B-777-300 panel with Sandro Bernardini's Continental 777-200 for a test flight from San Francisco Int'l Airport (KSFO) to Los Angeles Int'l Airport (KLAX), selecting FL330 as the cruise altitude.

Before we begin, I should emphasize that what's new here is that the Flight Management Computer—interacting with its companion Flight Planner—now can be coupled with the Autopilot, and hence automate flight functions as would be the case in real world commercial flying. And it's a good implementation for those who want a relatively straight forward system. To be sure, there's some new ground broken here—the flight planner sets up departure fixes so you can fly any selected runway heading to a calculated fix where the plane turns to the initial waypoint; similarly it calculates a pair of arrival turning points to intercept the chosen runway's localizer. But in other important respects the FMC's capabilities fall short. If you want to fly real world Departure and Arrival Procedures using this Flight Planner/FMC combo you'll have problems—which I discuss below. I've asked Tony D'Ambrosio about limitations I found and as you'd imagine, he's planning further changes.

Having said that, keep in mind that you won't be disappointed flying with this panel—you'll have a fully featured Primary Flight Display, moving map HSI Navigation Display, and the multifunction EICAS—Tony's "VD gauges" continue to excel.

Installation and Documentation

Installation is mostly automated and thus convenient. First you install Navigation Data v1.2 (unless that's already in your system from having installed Tony's ta747 panel earlier). Then you modify the chosen aircraft folder by moving the expanded Panel.TA777 folder to it, modifying the aircraft's air.cfg file to point to it, and moving the contents of the expanded Gauge folder into FS2000's Gauge folder. Though the download is fully featured, you'll need to register it to use the gauges for more than 10 minutes at a time. (If you've registered any earlier version of "RealCRT" gauges, that's carried over automatically to subsequent panel downloads, including this one.)

Documentation is quite good, though you won't find specifics of flying this aircraft here. In addition to a html-based Instruction document, you'll find ample information on the Navigation Data module in it's included 'Help' facility. One of the Instruction document's panel layout images is shown below.

Panel description showing many of its features

The flight Planner

We'll begin by creating a suitable flight plan. Unlike other Flight Management System (FMS) implementations, this one doesn't have a simulated key pad to build flight plans directly in the FMC; rather, you either create it manually or import one from FS2000's Pilots folder into the flight planning function provided with the updated "Navigational Data for FS2000" applet included in that file. In this case I manually entered the plan from one I'd created using Ted Wright's NAV 3, as there is no 'auto generate' feature in Navigation Data's flight planning facility. Note in the image set below that NAV 3 created waypoints based on the PORTE3 Departure with the Avenal (AVE VOR) transition; and SADDE6 Arrival where, as it happens, AVE is also the STAR's transition waypoint. Overall distance is just short of 300 miles, excluding vectoring after takeoff from the departure runway (where prevailing winds obliged me to use Rwy 28L) and to fly an easterly downwind leg and return approach to KLAX's Rwy 25L. The NAV 3 flight plan is depicted in two overlapping images so you can see the generated flight altitudes.

Flight plan created in Nav 3 (Click for full-size images)

Note the 'TOC' and 'BOD' points, and intermediate altitudes at the DP waypoints

Now here's the results of entering the departure airport and selected runway, and the arrival airport and its expected runway into Flight Data 2000's planning feature. (Note that in this screen capture the initial APT, 'Begin of Rotation dep' / 'End of Rotation dep' lines and the PORTE initial DP waypoint) are truncated so that the remainder of the flight plan could be shown.)

Equivalent Navigation Data plan (Click for full-size images)

Example of waypoint search and select feature

There are some interesting things to note here. First, Navigation Data has calculated and inserted the outward bound runway heading and climbing turn to vector to the 1st waypoint, just as ATC would do. And its inserted a 'Begin of Rotation Arr' fix to vector to the downwind leg for approach with the companion 'End of Rotation Arr' fix to intersect the localizer and begin the final approach leg. Refering to the screen capture, note the Departure Runway selection box 'SID/STAR Generator' segment where I selected Rwy 28L, together with the selectable rotation beginning point and rotation radius. The flight planner uses these settings to compute the Rotation Beginning and Ending fixes and headings. And there's a similar set of paramaters to select the expected arrival runway (though the same rotation distance and radius parameters must be used for both airports).

Though this is a neat feature, don't be misled by this statement in Navigation Data's Help: "you do not need to enter manually all the points for each SID and STAR of each airport's runway. You need only to select a runway for departure or arrival, and the first waypoint to join, indicating the direction you want to go or come from. Then ND will automatically generate the right procedure." Remember that what the flight planner actually does is to set the two points for the beginning and the end of the rotation—much as ATC would do vectoring you from one of the DP or STAR waypoints, depending on the runway assigned and traffic conditions. Therefore you'll still need to select the desired DP and STAR in your flight planner of choice (or use charts) before entering your flight plan in Navigation Data. Of course, if you're not a stickler for accuracy, you can omit the real world DP waypoints, and just fly from the airport to the enroute waypoints you've selected, again omitting actual STAR waypoints.

Also notice the "B-747-400" is shown in the "Aircraft Performance" window, as that's the only one provided. I found it necessary to change the rate and speed parameters, particularly cruise speed; otherwise the 777 attempts to fly with very unrealistic performance characteristics.

There's differences too in the computed 'Top of Climb' and 'Top of Descent' fixes. While this may be of little significance for the climb out, I found the difference in beginning the descent disconcerting, as the calculated 'Top of Descent' occurs almost 40 miles later (from the AVE fix) than in the NAV3-based plan; but more troubling is the comparison of altitudes when the SADDE intersection is reached; FL220 vs Nav3's 7,322 ft. (though admittadly NAV 3's calculation did not take into account which runway would be used). The result for me was that when turning to final I found myself above the tuned ILS' G/S (note the ND's G/S dot position in the final screenshot below), and couldn't recover as long as the FMC was controlling the aircraft.

I feel obliged to point out a further limitation in Navigation Data's flight planning characteristics for those who fly using Radar Contact, which is very demanding when it comes to meeting waypoint crossing restrictions: you can't select specific altitudes for a given waypoint in Navigation Data. In the published SADDE6 STAR, SYMON should be crossed at 12,000 ft., as opposed to Navigation Data's calculated 24,935 ft.!

All this is significant because a major feature of this product is that once the flight plan is loaded into the FMC it can be coupled to the autopilot using the FMC's 'EXEC' button. The FMC will then "fly" the plane automatically from takeoff to final approach.

Test System Dell XBR B800r ( 800 MHz) Windows 2000 Professional 128 Megs RAM GeForce 4X AGP 3D 24X DVD CD ROM Creative Live! Value Sound MS Sidewinder FF Pro stick Mitsubishi 19" Monitor Flying Time: 5 hours over 3 days

The flight test

You can get a good idea of the panel's capabilities, and particularly of the FMC from the series of screenshots below. In the "Preparing for departure" image I've loaded the flight plan into the FMC, which now is in 'Route' mode. That displays details about the current waypoint—in this instance the KSFO airport and the runway I've selected. When I clicked on the 'RTE' button in the Mode Control Panel (MCP), I discovered that a downside of running Windows 2000 on my system is having to live with "No Route Available" displayed in the Navigation Display (ND) —instead of lines connecting my flight plan's waypoints. Looking up you'll see a minimal (by current standards) Overhead panel.

In the next screenshot we're holding at Rwy 28L awaiting takeoff clearance. In this view I've clicked the 'FMC' button (adjacent to the Transponder readout) so you'll see the familiar EICAS in the MFD. You can click on the rotating knob to the far right (by the landing gear lever) to display either fuel system details or additional engine data, including fuel flow. Notice that I've switched the ND to ARC mode, but haven't yet engaged the FMC.

The instrumentation readouts during climb are as you would expect. I've clicked the FMC's 'EXEC' button shortly after takeoff. Here we see another of the FMC's modes, 'PROGRESS'. This tells us what the upcoming waypoints are, in this instance the Departure Procedure—we've departed PORTE, now tracking PESCA, and WAGES will be next.

Preparing for departure at San Francisco Int'l airport

Ready to roll

Climbout

Cruising along nicely, I've departed the previous 'TOC' fix with 59 miles to go to the Avenal transition. There's also an option to select (fly 'direct to') the following waypoint. And it's now 228 miles to our destination. Currently the ND mode knob (at the panel's far left) is set to display the Flight Director (FD) in the ND. Also you can change both the range and navigation details displayed in the ND using the MCP's mode selectors. Notice that wind direction and speed is displayed on the ND; I've set the CRS knob in the MCP to show how much the AP is correcting my track to compensate. Also VOR1 is set to AVE, now active, so we see our ground speed displayed in the ND—474kts! Another nice touch is that you can look up the frequency for an upcoming VOR by clicking on that waypoint in the PROGRESS screen.

In the next screenshot I've begun the first leg of my manually entered SADDE6 STAR ; here you can see KLAX coming into view in the moving map.

In the final screenshot I was attempting to set up the approach. Notice I'm on KLAX's I-LAX localizer for Rwy 25L—but I'm way too high and fast. A problem here is that there is no way to reduce speed to something reasonable during the approach (even after switching off the Autothrottle earlier in the descent). Remember that descent speed is a fixed parameter once you've created your flight plan. I did my best to hold it back using the spoilers, but the A/P would fight that by advancing the throttles to full thrust—which has the frustrating effect of automatically retracting the spoilers with this panel. The only way I know to slow the plane and fly it on the G/S is to turn off the FMC early in the approach (by clicking on the A/P Disengage bar), then fly the approach with the A/P LOC and APR buttons engaged and control the throttles manually.

Not only should the pilot be able to turn off Speed control on the A/P while the FMC is in control, but also there's no built-in 250 KT speed restriction capablility to fly legally below 10,000 ft.

Cruise at FL330

The SADDE6 STAR's initial leg

I'm afraid this is the last scene; note excessive altitude and speed!

Visit Tony Ambrosio's Top Avionics website to download this and his other panel and navigation files.