I've been using a number of the airliner add-ons for Microsoft Flight Simulator and Terminal Reality's Fly! and, for a while, have been looking for a good book on flight management systems. There are a variety of books and manuals available on FMS, but I wanted one that had general applicability to a wide variety of aircraft.

Fortunately, Stephen Casner, the author of "The Pilot's Guide to the Modern Cockpit," felt the same way and wrote one! The book is a lot slimmer than I had anticipated and printed in a large font with plenty of diagrams. It is truly a guide for the novice, and its intended audience is commercial pilots transitioning to a regional jet. The main focus of the book is the next generation Boeing 737, but because of its approach the content is applicable to 747-400s, 777s and non-Boeing aircraft. Indeed, the final chapter discusses the cockpits of the 747-400 and the CRJ.

Casner takes a step-by-step approach, with chapters covering flight planning, following a programmed flight route, en route modifications, flying off the planned route and rejoining the planned route. There is also a chapter on human factors, which is Casner's research interest at the NASA Ames Laboratories, which may be of little importance for the sim-pilot but is vital in the real world.

Each part of the process is illustrated through a multitude of diagrams of the CDU, EFIS, EICAS and MCP together with easy to follow text, enabling the reader to understand not only what is being done, but more importantly why it is being done. The penultimate chapter puts all the information presented in the previous chapters together and describes a complete flight from San Francisco to Los Angeles and covers everything from pre-flight to vacating the runway at the destination.

How well does all this work with the popular airliner add-ons? Very well in fact. I tried the sample flight plan with both Phoenix's 777 and Dreamfleet's 737 and found only minor differences. However, those readers who expect these add-on products to implement the exact functionality of the particular aircraft's FMS and cockpit displays are sadly misguided. They cannot and should not be expected to offer the same level of functionality as a purpose-built simulator for a particular type.

For those with aspirations of flying real aircraft equipped with such systems (and it may not be that long before we see this equipment in the general aviation fleet), this book will be an invaluable stepping stone to the more detailed texts and type-specific handbooks.

"The Pilot's Guide to the Modern Airline Cockpit" by Stephen M. Casner costs $39.95 from the Iowa State University Press.

Editor's Note: David Sayed is "a displaced Englishman living in the San Francisco Bay Area." He is a low-time private pilot.