Green VOR course line on ND... How do I turn it off?

[victorlima01 2]

Hi guys, whenever I have my left nav radio set to a station that currently fits inside my nautical display'range I get that green radial line extending from the station in the direction of the course set on the MCP. Ok, so far so good, I know its supposed to do that; but I'd like to know if there's any way that I can turn it off without having to "un-tune" my nav radio to that station. The only way I can get it to go away is to tune my radio to a VOR that is further away and thus not displayed or closing in on the ND range, and these don;t seem like a viable solution. Stupid question, I know... but sometimes the thing gets in the way and I like a clean ND! :) thanks for the help.Cheers,Victorhttp://www.precisionmanuals.com/images/forum/800driver.jpg

[lefteris 70]

Well-at least you'll be comforted to know that real-world NG drivers face the same problem as you :-).(Too real, eh?)

[victorlima01 2]

Hi lefteris, thanks for quick reply. Yep, I never thought I'd say this but given the circumstances I think I'd rather have a less real version of the airplane then!Maybe PMDG should start thinking about reprogramming their lousy ND overlay? Imagine the next step of flightsiming: More real than it gets - don't like the way the real thing is done? we'll customize it for you! :) Or maybe I should just email Boeing and say that as a 737NG sim pilot I am not satisfied with their Nautical display and that they should put some serious thought into redoing it. Cheers, Victor

[Guest _sebastian_]

>The only way I can get it to go>away is to tune my radio to a VOR that is further away and>thus not displayed or closing in on the ND range, and these>don;t seem like a viable solution.Well, given that a pilot would only tune in on a specific VOR frequency if he wants to go to or leave the VOR on a given radial (flying an arc is taken care of by inserting the VOR as a fix in the FMC), I would say that un-tuning the frequency is THE logical conclusion to any situation that doesn't imply it's need. It seems counter-intuitive to include an option where one could remove the graphical overlay from the VOR that is currently active! If this option is, in fact, included in the real thing I doubt that uncluttering of the ND is it's dedicated purpose. I suggest you change the MCP course so the radial, at least, will not obstruct the FMC's route overlay. Or even simpler, as Howard Stern would put it, if you don't like the channel, change it!/sebastian

[victorlima01 2]

Hi Sebastian, I usually do exactly that, I change the course in the MCP to unclutter the display, but I do not agree that going to or form a VOR is the only reason to have it tuned. I usually like to have a VOR tuned so that I can get DME readings on the ND and have greater situational awareness, specially if the selected VOR is one of my enroute fixes. And I believe many pilots must agree with me because the 777 for example has an auto-tuning capability and thus two stations closer to the aircraft will always be selected and their info (DME and pointers) will be available in the ND. However, there's no course window in the MCP and no course displayed in the ND, only the DME and pointers (which can be turned off by the VOR selectors next the MCP like the NG) I use this as an example because the 777 was constructed with input from airline pilots from around the world. Please correct any mistakes in my post, and thank you for your answers. Cheers, Victor http://www.precisionmanuals.com/images/forum/800driver.jpg

[Guest _sebastian_]

>Hi Sebastian, I usually do exactly that, I change the course>in the MCP to unclutter the display, but I do not agree that>going to or form a VOR is the only reason to have it tuned. I>usually like to have a VOR tuned so that I can get DME>readings on the ND and have greater situational awareness,>specially if the selected VOR is one of my enroute fixes. And>I believe many pilots must agree with me because the 777 for>example has an auto-tuning capability and thus two stations>closer to the aircraft will always be selected and their info>(DME and pointers) will be available in the ND. However,>there's no course window in the MCP and no course displayed in>the ND, only the DME and pointers (which can be turned off by>the VOR selectors next the MCP like the NG) I use this as an>example because the 777 was constructed with input from>airline pilots from around the world. Please correct any>mistakes in my post, and thank you for your answers. Cheers,>Victor >http://www.precisionmanuals.com/images/forum/800driver.jpgHi again Victor.I'm not too prone to disagree with you although I still have difficulties in seeing why this option is something that should be considered usefull with an AFDS such as the NG's. As for the distance to the VOR, just select STA on the EFIS and all the stations in the area, not just two, will show up relative to your aircraft. Of course this is not a precise means of knowing the distance to any one in particular, but combined with the fact that, on the real thing, a moving geographical map is included underneath, and that whole airports can be shown too, I would suspect that the situational awareness is in good shape. Include weather overlay and the mental picture one could infer from triangulating on a maximum of two navaids tuned on the radio comes no way near the other. If the VOR is an enroute fix it becomes even more redundant as the exact distance to the VOR is dynamically updated on the ND anyway within the same, or better, 3% margin of precision as DME readouts. Mind you also that the NG has autotuning of VORs much similar to the 777s which, as you point out, can be seen by proper selection of the VOR/ADF switch.But ask the experienced rather than the learned, as they say, and I'm not in a position to claim to be either. Let's see if the 787 accomodates your wishes more than I do, or the BBJ even :-)Best,/sebastian

[victorlima01 2]

Hi again Sebastian, I saw my mistake too late - where I pointed out that I wanted DME info specially when the navaid was one of my enroute fixes. I knew but completely forgot about the more acurate data displayed on the ND's upper right-hand corner. Your informative post did raise some new quesitons for me though: the autotuning capability that you referred to in the 737NG is not something that the pilot can interact with right? What I mean is that in the 777 there's a menu on the FMC labeled NAV RADIO where both left and right navradios will always be tuning to the two closest stations and these will be displayed on the ND as it would on the 737NG if the aircraft was receiving from a station manually tuned into the navradios. And on this same page in the FMC the pilot can manually select any other station(s) overriding the autotuning. My PMDG 737 does not behave like this, it only tunes to stations I manually select on my radio panel and only then will information regarding that station be made available in the ND (i.e the damned course line :) Distance and the green needles). However I did read somewhere that the 737 uses autotuning to always update its position and crosscheck that with other navigation intruments (the IRSs GPS and so on). But if that is so, whenever the pilot manually tunes to another station other than the one being used by the aircraft's computers to triangulate its position won't that interfere with the aforementionted procedure? Sorry about the confusing post, but I never expect something as simple as decluttering my ND to raise such questions! Cheers, Victorhttp://www.precisionmanuals.com/images/forum/800driver.jpg

[Mats_J 2]

Victor,The NG has autotuning but only on radio devices not readily accessible by the pilots. There are a number of radio recievers on the NG of which only two are used for crew NAV requirements.I think a search for autotuning could reveal some interesting posts about this subject.Hope it helps,

[Qavion 19]

>I think a search for autotuning could reveal some interesting posts about this subject.Good advice, Matt.... beats pure guesswork any day ;-)The NG FMC has GPS updating which pretty much overrides all the other forms of Nav Radio updating. If the GPS system is broken, then FMC looks at a long list of Nav Radio alternatives to use for updating. The list is arranged in order of accuracy.The FMC cannot autotune the VOR. However, it does autotune the DME...and it tunes DME stations in pairs to give a proper fix. If a suitable DME-DME pair is not found, the FMC will try to obtain a fix from a co-located VOR-DME station. To successfully do this, the VOR has to be manually tuned by the pilot to the correct frequency (Pilots... don't fly without your charts!)DME stations are not chosen because they are closest. The DME stations are chosen for best geometry. You won't get a good fix if you flying directly over a DME station or if the two DME stations form a very narrow or very wide angle.Also, the ILS LOCalizer can be used in conjunction with a DME to get an accurate position fix. On the 737NG, however, the LOC has a relatively low priority (unlike other Boeing aircraft)Hope this helps.Cheers.Ian.

[Mats_J 2]

>Pilots... don't fly without your charts!Good advice, Ian... beats pure guesswork any day! :-PCheers,

[victorlima01 2]

Hi guys, thanks for the replies, you answered all my questions. |Cheers, victor