Hello First of all I want to say The 737 is just excellent and I also love the B1900.. I fly online almost all the time. Is it at all possible to fly online using the FMC that comes with Sqkbox. Too be honest with you I just havent really gotten a hold of the auto pilot and fmc with the 737. And Is it only possbile to use a/p with the FMC,like if I didnt want to fly a flight plan ? Also I was wondering is there any good videos out there for this bird that would maybe help me better understand the a/p and fmc.......ThanksMike B.

Hi and welcome Mike,I will encourage you to learn to master the internal FMC and the AFDS in the NG over using the so called FMC in Squawkbox. It's the core around which the plane is built. There are two really good tutorials out there that will give you a kick start on learning the automatic flight systems on the NG. THe first one is written by Fred Clausen and is a basic walk through and the second one is a five flight type rating tutorial written by Tim Metzinger. You can find them here at AVSIM. Unfortunately the library is down but I saw Tim has made his tutorial available on his site.For other sources of information I can recommend two great web sites:www.smartcockpit.comwww.b737.org.ukAnd last two great books about the NG:FMC user's guide and 737 cockpit companion. You can order those ones here: www.fmcguide.comHope it helps,

Hello Thanks for the reply. I got the tutorials that I could download.Ive been messing with the one by Fred Clausen. I did manage to get the FMC loaded up and the a/c airborne and following the flight plan.Its a lot to learn and get use to but Im sure once I have done it a few times It wont be so bad. I really like the "HOLD" function that will come in handy on those busy nights on vatsim. Now I wasnt able to finish the flight cause i did something Im sure that caused the FMC to discontinue the flight. I think I touched the yoke or something. Anyway I wasnt able to get the fmc to pick the planback up. I havent gotten that far into the manual yet I guess to see what I did wrong. But I am really looking forward to flying this babyon a nice flight online. This just might become my favorite a/c to fly. Well thanks again for the help. Will post again once I geta flight completed. lol Mike B

To answer the second part of your question, yes, you certainly can fly the NG via the AP without programming a route into the FMC. You just won't be able to use the VNAV or LNAV modes. (The VNAV mode, also called a "pitch mode", follows your vertical flight plan, including speed and altitude constraints. The LNAV mode, also called a "roll mode", follows your lateral flight plan, including waypoints, SIDs, DPs, and approaches.)If you want to fly the plane via autopilot without the FMC, you would just have to use other pitch and roll modes, such as HDG SEL mode to control your heading, and VS or ALT HOLD modes to control altitude and climb/descent.One catch here is that if you fly on VATSIM using a /F equipment designator in SquawkBox (meaning you have an FMC on board), that allows ATC to vector you "direct" to non-radio fixes, namely airway intersections. (I'm a controller at Boston Logan, and I do this quite often for aircraft departing on the LOGAN2 DP.) Without entering the assigned fix into the LEGS page of the FMC, you won't be able to fly direct to the fix using the autopilot. You could of course tell ATC that you are unable to navigate direct to the fix, in which case they can give you raw vectors, or ask you to intercept a VOR radial to the fix instead, which you can of course do without using the FMC.