Hi,I'm new to PMDG 737NG's and still finding my way through the manuals. Have downloaded the latest STARs/SIDs and the latest AIRAC cycle. I have the following, very basic questions, please help:Before I can choose a flight to enter onto the FMC, how do I know what routes I can fly which correspond to the AIRAC database? Is there anything like that, I mean are we restricted to flying routes which are only in the AIRCAC (I would presume so).And secondly, since we have to manually enter the waypoints (TO/VIA) or the route as such, how do I know what the route is? I mean how do I know what to enter in the FMC if I was to fly say from Mumbai to New Delhi or London to Paris?So essentially my problem is I dont where I can fly, I dont know to get details for the routes, so I dont know what to enter in the FMC. Look forward to some help here.Thanks everyone. BTW, I use MSFS 2004 and fly the 737NG (-600&700). -Pranav

Hi Pranav,if you want to fly a published route, you have to know details of this route (eg: name/code such as A1/J581 and so on, and waypoints, at least the waypoints you need to enter and exit this very route). But you can program any direct route in the FMC, it will provide a great circle track from any 2 waypoints inserted.To know more on the routes, you should have (I think: purchase, if you don't have a friend that is pilot and can give you the expired charts) the relevant charts.But you can also try to find (or ask) a particular real world flight plan in the Avsim Flight Plan Forum, you'll find a full rw fp that you can program directly on your FMC without having the charts...not too real, but...Cheers.

You can fly anywhere you want to because the Navdata AIRAC covers the whole world! Nice, isn't it?The simpliest way to get a route which you can enter in the FMC is to go tohttp://rfinder.asalink.net/free/It's a FREE routeplanner! Only you thing you have to know is the airport ICAO ID (like EHAM for Schiphol) from the airport you are leaving from and the one you are going to. If you don't know these codes you can find them by using the MSFS pplanner. That's all. No need for charts.Enter the codes in the ICAO ID fields (no need to fill in or change anything else) and press FIND ROUTE. That's it. You will see a page with the complete route with ALL waypoints you will pass (and other nice information like the distance). But what's even better: at the bottom of the page you will see a SUMMARY. For instance, if you take a flight from LIRF to EGLL you will see:LIRF SID ELB UM729 DJL UH37 BRY UM733 GURLU STAR EGLL Okay, LIRF is the departure airport and EGLL the destination. You can use a SID at LIRF and a STAR at EGLL but if you're new to SIDS and STARS you might forget about these for now.The waypoints with only letters (ELB, DJL, etc) are the TO waypoints: you have to enter them at the RIGHT of the FMC screen. The 'waypoints' with numbers (UM729, UH37, etc) aren't waypoints but airways: you fly to the waypoints VIA airways so you have to enter those at the LEFT of the FMC screen. The nice things about airwyas is that they (may) contain a LOT of waypoints, but you don't have to enter them all one by one! They are predefined in the airway! On the LEGS page and on the ND you will see all these waypoints: the airways can only be used and seen on the ROUTE page.How do you enter this summary into the FMC?Go to the ROUTE page and enter LIRF as ORIGIN and EGLL as DEST. Press NEXT PAGE to get to the second ROUTE page. Enter ELB in the scratchpad and press LSK1R (the first one under TO). You will see DIRECT appear under VIA on the left because you are not using an airway to get to ELB.Then enter UM729 and press LSK2L (under VIA). Enter DJL and press LSK2R (under TO). And so on. The last point you have to enter will be EGLL at the right (which will be DIRECT point becuase you go there straight after GURLU because yuo have no STAR yet).So, waypoints (where you want to go) at the right and airways (via which you will get where you want to go) at the left. It will look something like this (pity you can't use tabs here, so I've used dots to seperate left from right.. ;)VIA............................TODIRECT..................ELB UM729 ...................DJL UH37 .....................BRY UM733 .............GURLU DIRECT................EGLLDont' forget to ACTIVATE and EXEC the route!All in all you will need no further software or stuff like charts to fly from A to B. Altough having real charts might make things more interesting or more realistic. I have to sya I have NOTHING but FS9 and the PMDG: no other add-ons, no charts, no nothing. And I'm having a big time! :)If you want to fly online (VATSIM) you will need charts (SIDS, STARS, approach plates) in order to do it the way it should be done. But most charts like these can be downloaded for free on the various Vatsim sites. But that's a complete other story... ;)

PranavJeroen did a good job explaining how to get started with the FMC.Charts can be helpfull tho. I bought "Simplates 2004", not as good as Jepesen i,m told but a heck of a lot cheaper. They do the job. I got a 4" 3 ring binder and when I intend to make a flight I print out the approach plates. The program provides airport diagrams and plates for most airports you would most likely fly into, SIDS and STARS too, some 18,000 if I remmember correctly. The thing is, with plates you can enter the outer, middle and inner markers so you seem to get lined up with the runway a bit sooner in most cases. They also give you the Localizer freq. and runway heading, also the proper altitude to intercept thr glideslope.I also bought the high altitude charts (real world) from Sporty,s Pilot Shop, OK but tough to read because of the way they are printed. They were cheap. If you live near an airport you can get or buy out of date ones real cheap, they may even give em to you.Another good app is FSBuild, set up properly it will export a flight plan to both fs9 and PMDG/FLIGHTPLANS, one in .pln the other in rte format which the FMC can load into itself. You need to go to FlightPlans in the FMC, on the left side you will see KBOSEGLL001, (example) press the LSK and it,s all loaded into the FMC.Once you get used to the FMC you will be amazed at the flexability and what you can do to fix up your SIDS or STARS on the fly.Good Luck

Thanks all. This forum's awesome. Really helped me off the ground yesterday with my first NG flight. In particular, thanks to Jeroen for providing me with a great description on the basics of the FMC!Enjoy simming!Cheers,Pranav:-)