Is there a place, tutorial, website, ect that tells you how to correctly use the FD? I thought I knew how to use it, but always flew with autopilot. Now I want to fly manually with the FD. I was doing some things and had 300 degrees in the HDG bug and was at 300 degrees but the bar kept going to the right. I turned to 310, it centered then moved right again. Maybe i dont understand FD like i thought. Any help would be great!Brad ZImmer

I believe Brad Zimmer deserves an answer - and I admit I am interested to. It would be nice if someone could chime in on the subject. I believe the first published review of the product spoke of "disinterested" FD in the heading mode. Has it been fixed, worked on, etc. ?Michael J.

BradSeems you got something not completely setup there. The FD is a great tool to handfly this beauty. But I can't say I've ever seen it misbehave even in SU1 or SU1.1. Ok, some basic handling:I'm assuming straight and level flight here.I guess you have FD switch ON, if not turn it on. Did you choose a A/P mode on the MCP? From what you are telling us you are dialing a heading so you should also press the HDG SEL mode button. You should note what the FMA (top of the PFD) tells you at this point. You would also like the FD to guide you in the vertical plane so some kind of pitch mode would be approriate as well. If you have a flight plan loaded and fully configured you can put the MCP in VNAV roll mode. Push the VNAV button.Ok put the A/T on as well. The auto throttle will manage the speed for you. And it's needed to have it in auto to get VNAV to work correctly.Ok, so we're set up for FD hand flying.The FMA area should now show: FMC SPD|HDG SEL|VNAV PTHAlso below this line of text it should say FD. THis means the autopilot is not engaged but the flight director is on and awaiting you to act as the "auto"pilot and fly centering the bars (or the single cue if you use the other option)Last tip, read the manual, there's some pretty useful information there. You would also want to take a look at www.smartcockpit.com for some good real-world information on these issues.And finally, anyone, please chip in and correct me if I'm wrong here. ;-)Hope it helps,

you say above "Did you choose a A/P mode on the MCP?" Well if I do this and then select the vnav or heading, the A/P will start to control the plane and I wont be flying manually. I engage the FD at takeoff and leave it on throughout the flight even when i switch on the autopilot. I NEVER touch he stick and the plane will turn on LNAV or heading and climb on its own during VNAV. What am I missing here?Brad Zimmer

Ah, BradSorry I was being a bit unlcear!'The only way to actually activate the A/P is by pressing one of the two CMD buttons. Either CMD A or CMD B. The other buttons to the left of these are buttons to set modes for the AFDS and the A/P to follow.Chose whatever AFDS mode you like but do not engage the A/P with CMD A or B. And as I said. Read the manuals to get a basic understanding of the logic of the automated flight systems on the NG. ;-)Hope it helps,

thats what I have been doing. I do not activate AP and place everything I want in the MCP and try to follow the FD bars. If I have 310 in the HDG box and have it checked, it still tells me to turn right even though i am at 310. Also, the VNAV and LNAV buttons do not illuminate unless I am in AP mode. Where in the manual does it talk about FD? Thanks again. BRad

I think I understand what you are trying to do - test FD in its very basic configuration using HDG SEL only (does this mode show up in the PFD ?). No vertical mode. FD bar should guide you through the turn to intercept the selected heading. At least this is how it works on 767 PIC that I used a lot.Michael J.

ok, I tried what you told me and it seemed to work a bit better. My only problem now is speed. I press toga for take off and fly FD bars. Yet my speed wont go higher than vref+15. Do i need to turn TOGA off? I turned off AT and applied full thrust, but no luck. What am I doing wrong? Im almost there!! Guide me home!!Brad

BradTO/GA will show FD bars that will pitch the plane to keep V2+20 (Either you or the A/P will pitch it) and keep the plane in HDG SEL (either you or the A/P) (Actually it keeps wings level and doesn't announce anything at the FMA but that's a SU2 feature)A/T will command throttles to the N1 set in the FMC. DEpending on weight and derating this will be somewhere between 87 to 94 % N1.After take off you're on your own. If you have a valid flight plan route programmed in the FMC you can switch over to LNAV and VNAV. This only works if preflight prep of the FMC is complete and valid. If not, you can choose a flight level and engage LVL CHG mode and a heading and engage HDG SEL. The FD bars will command either you (if FD is announciated on the PFD) or the A/P (if CMD is selected and CMD is announciated on the PFD)Tim Metzinger has done an excellent tutorial which I think would suit you very well. Links are on this forum and the file is in the AVSIM library.Regarding where to find information in the PMDG 737 The Next Generation, 737-600/700 Aircraft Operations Manual:MCP controls on pp. 21-28A/P buttons pp. 28-29FMA annoucements p. 30I'm sure you can find more if you use the index pages and read it through... Regarding take off:PMDG Flight Crew Manual pp. 7-12And the flight crew manual has a good index too... ;-)Also do searches on stuff like this on this forum. Many questions have been answered before.Hope it helps,

thanks, I'll try the advice!

Not sure if this is really relevant but:This will be a little simplified otherwise I will wear my finger out.It is best to understand the AFDS system as 2 seperate parts. A FD and a pilot.There is one Flight Director. I will stick with the split cue FD as it is a little easier to understand. There are two magenta bars on the PFD giveing LATERAL (left/right) and PITCH (houses get bigger or smaller) guidance commands {Remember anything displayed in MAGENTA is a COMMAND to a pilot be it a speed, an altitude, a heading etc)IRL there are FOUR pilots on the aircraft being 2 of the soft and squishy variety (human) and 2 of the electronic smoke and mirrors type (Autopilot A and Autopilot :( Any of these four can follow the guidance commands provided by the FD.The FD will guide any of the pilots in PITCH and ROLL to get to where we have told the FD we want it to take us. This could be to a HDG, a VOR station, an ARPT etc or it could be to climb or descend to an ALT, to maintain a VS, to hold an ALT etc.We communicate with the FD through the MCP or the FMS. The FD then provides ROLL and PITCH information guidance for the pilot handling the aircraft. You can at times have the FMC providing input to the FD in one axis (Roll or Pitch) and the MCP providing input to the FD in the other and vice versa.For the sake of this post I will deal solely in the most basic mode normally used IRL and that is HDG and LVL CHG.After takeoff (that is a complex area) we would select a Lateral and a Pitch mode. Let's stick with HDG and LVL CHG. This means the Lateral FD command will move left or right to guide you to the selected HDG in teh MCP HDG window and it is also dispalyed on teh ND by the HDG cursor or bug as it is known. The Pitch bar will guide you on climb to your selected altitude.Even LVL CHG is not an easy mode to understand but suffice it to say it will give a PITCH command to maintain teh SPEED selected in the MCP window and your rate of climb will be a result of teh thrust being provided by teh noisy smelly thing on each wing. This thrust can either be set manually by youmoving teh levers or if you have the Autothrottle engaged then it will be commanding engine thrust to what you selected in the FMC prior to takeoff.The key at all times is to read and understand what the FMAs are telling you. The LEFT one is always what the AUTOTHROTTLE is doing, the MIDDLE one is your ROLL or LATERAL mode and the RIGHT one is always your PITCH MODE.Hmmm...Rereading this I am not sure it will help but if no just email me or and I will do my best.BradWe set the MCP or teh FMS to tell teh FD where we want to go or point

I wanted to add something concerning the heading issue that Brad mentioned in his first post. I, too, was a little disoriented the first time I tried to hand fly the plane because I was thinking in terms of turning the aircraft to the heading that I had selected but the FD was commanding me to turn past that heading. What I had failed to take into account was that I had programmed a complete flight plan into the FMC and what the FD was doing was commanding me to turn to a heading that would allow me to intercept the course of my flight plan. I finally just did what the FD told me to do and sure enough when my aircraft began to intercept the course line on the flight plan the FD bar started to swing in the other direction. I again did what the FD was indicating and I settled onto the desired heading and was also centered on my flight plan course.I hope that made sense. It was harder to put it into words than I thought it would be when I started typing it ;)DonP.S. even with the slight confusion I mentioned above I managed to fly the entire flight by hand. It was tremendous fun and I was amazed at how well the aircraft performed!

>account was that I had programmed a complete flight plan into>the FMC and what the FD was doing was commanding me to turn to>a heading that would allow me to intercept the course of my>flight plan. Tha is all very good but this should happen only when the lateral mode was LNAV. In this case (per Brad's original post) I believe we are talking about the HDG SEL mode - and in such case flight plan should not matter at all. For simplicity we can actually assume that FMC is switched off.Michael J.

Brad, You said in you initial post that you had 300 in the widnow but you didn't say whether or not you had selected "HDG HLD" on the MCP? If you don't select a mode on the panel for the FD/AFS then it can't give you guidance. The flight director is basically a visual representation of what the AFS system would do if it was engaged. Since the flight director is part of the AFS you must tell it what mode you want to fly (Pitch and Roll). If you want to play around with this, dial in your runway heading and T/O. After T/O and initial climb, select HGD HLD and either V/S or Lvl Chg and see what the flight director bars tell you to fly. The after T/O problem you see has been corrected in SU2. It was a total rework and improves the T/O G/A function tremendously.RegardsPaul Gollnick :-cool Technical Operations/Customer Operational SupportPrecision Manuals Development Groupwww.precisionmanuals.comhttp://www.precisionmanuals.com/images/forum/devteam.jpg