Does anyone have a technique for determining the destination landing runway in use? It would be nice to have the FMC fully programmed from the get-go. Quite a few times I've been distracted by changing the arrival runway info in the FMC while less than 30 miles out, which has at times led to some interesting manouvers.

doing this well requires that you know the weather at your destination airport.If you're flying in basic FS9 (with or without MS-ATC), you can try to tune the ATIS frequency for your destination or nearby airport.If you're using add-on weather, you can query the weather engine for your destination airport weather.If you're flying online with VATSIM, you can use your VATSIM client for a weather update, but you're better off asking ATC, because if ATC is controlling the airport they can and will give you a runway assignment that may have a slight downwind or strong crosswind component.Best wishes,

I am still deciding if i should use this on the 747-400 pmdg.I have used it with the default 777-300 with no problems,heres the link.Phill.http://library.avsim.net/esearch.php?DLID=52530

Real world: Tune ATIS before entering terminal airspace. The approach controller is going to want you to confirm that you have current ATIS on initial contact. Some busy airports have preferred traffic direction that they will stick to regardless of wind unless it exceeds a certain value.Sim world: Since winds affect the performance of the FMC in VNAV mode during descent to the extreme; I've started using the FS Map in slew mode after downloading real world weather. It works best to do this before you program the FMC because sometimes it gets confused and I need to reset the flight and start over. Anyway, after loading weather, I use the map to move me to a mid-path location at cruise altitude to get the cruise winds (you gotta take FS out of pause, but leave it in slew ((the "Y" key)) ). Then I move to three locations along the descent path to get the winds at three altitudes that I write on a scratch pad. The descent forecast page accepts three values. Finally, you can check out the destination weather.After slewing around, reset the flight with Go To Airport and load up the wind numbers, preferred STAR and runway.I've tried using actual weather from aviation weather online but found that the simulated world winds aloft are different enough to go through the extra step of slewing around with the Map.

Hi Don,This doesn't go anywhere to answering your question- but once you get familiar with a plane, then distractions that are similar to you having to scramble to enter the correct runway into the FMC are what make flying fun- and each flight unique. I think in the real world its very unlikely that a flight will continue and terminate exactly how it was planned to do so, which is why the flying part needs to be second nature so one can deal with the issues that are attempting to distract you. And its the unforeseen uniqueness that makes flying special.Of course- the same goes for driving a car and the unforeseen things that occur on even a small trip to the store, but most of us are so proficient at driving that the distractions are dealt with almost unconciously :)Bruce.