Last night I got the chance to be part of the pre-flight cockpit checks of a Cargolux 747-400 at KJFK prior to departure to Mexico. We flew the pilots in there in a King Air 100 from KHSV( Huntsville,AL) and they offered us a tour of the year old 747-400 freighter.I'm a huge 767 PIC enthusiast and I was amazed to see how close the MCP,FMS, ND and EHSI is to the 767PIC.(Yes I know the panel layout is different) The only major differences was the EICAS and the LEGS page on the FMS where you would press the ROUTE DATA page to insert the winds at different waypints/altitudes. Why isn't this feature simulated in 767PIC's FMS??Thanks to the two nice German Cargolux pilots and ground crew at JFK.

Come on, you don't think you got 30 dollars worth?. Damn the PIC developers!.Pedro

Morning Pedro...You are absolutely right.....It is a great product and for ONLY $30, so I really shouldn't complain...But that's really not the issue here though. The PIC team has done a fantastic job simulating the systems of the Boeing 767. But why have they left this part out?? I see the same with PSS A320, 747-400 and the 777. Is this a Microsoft Flight Sumulator limitation??

Even if the PIC developers did include that feature, what would you do with it? There's really no way to find the readings you're looking for anyway. Even though PSS has modeled this feature in their FMCs, as far as I know you cannot actually input any data.Ryan HoffmanZDC/VUAL

767PIC, DF737, PSS A320, 747-400, 777 does not model this feature. All these sims are fantastic sims, and you would think this would be easy to model. They have managed to simulate/recreate very complicated systems, so why not go all the way.You can in fact get the necessary winds/temps aloft. If you have a US pilots/student license you can log on to DUATS.com and get a relatively accurate weather briefing including winds/temps aloft.All this would make the sim very realistic......ChristianATP,CFI,CFII.

AHHHH KHSV I work there for FedEx when the qualified W&B person is sick or on vacation. I'm based in Mobile, but I'm qualified on all the Alabama Ramps... BFM, BHM and HSV. HSV is really nice to fly into, but Signature charges you 20 bucks to park, during my flight training, we go up there and do touch and goes and never pull into the GA area. My instructor told me if something happens to the plane, we are NOT pulling into the GA area! We'll fix it on the taxiway! heheheheAnyways, FedEx only flys a 727-100 in there, but everytime I go, I get the MX guy to take me down to the MK airlines 747-100/200 not for sure and the Atlas Air 747-400. The flight crews are always from Germany or England. They love to fly in and go to wal-mart and buy stuff! The night I took a tour, one of the crew had bought a trolling motor for his boat! He said it was cheaper here. After they close up, I ride down the service road to the end of the runway and sit. The RWY's are 10,000 ft and the flights are direct to Amsterdam I think. So they use just about all the RWY. Nothing like a 747 taking off about 300 feet away!

The DF737 FMC allows entering winds - do you mean that the feature is not functional? (I have never tried it.)Martin767 fetishistIt's a lot like life and that's what's appealing

Martin.You can enter the surface winds but you are uable to enter winds and temperatures aloft. This information is entered into the FMC's ROUTE/ROUTE DATA page before every flight. This can be a rather time- consuming event if you have a long flight. This information is normally obtained from the aircraft/airline dispatcher.I'm really just nitpicking here, but it would make the sim more realistic. Christian.

So the data that you can enter on the LEGS DATA page (not sure if that's the actual name) is surface winds, not winds aloft?Martin767 fetishistIt's a lot like life and that's what's appealing

Martin:INIT/REF takes you to the PERF page. This page is used to enter data required by the FMC to calculate aircraft performance. The next page is the TAKEOFF INIT page witch has two pages. On this second page you can enter runway winds etc. This is basically the only wind information you can enter into 767PIC's the FMC.The LEGS page has an additional page called RTE DATA page, this page is modeled but you are unable to enter winds and temperatures aloft. In the real aircraft you would select a waypoint on the RTE DATA page witch would take you to a new page. This is where you would enter the necessary winds and temperatures aloft for the waypint you selected.Christian.

Christian,I was talking about the DF737 FMC (sorry for going off topic! :-)). The DF 737 FMC allows entering winds on the LEGS DATA page. I'm sure this is winds aloft, but I'm not sure if the feature is actually functional (i.e. if the fuel calculations actually vary with different winds entered).Martin767 fetishistIt's a lot like life and that's what's appealing

Well hello!!!??Why would you want to enter the winds on the FMC? First, without you setting the winds manually or downloading winds aloft, there IS NO WIND! And even if you did download the actual winds aloft, you'd need a print-out of actual wind at each waypoint at each altitude (as we get on real company flight plans). But since you don't have that, there's no use for an FMC winds aloft function.If you did put a constant wind in there, the FMC doesn't need a wind entry, it doesn't need that in real life either.Hope that explains why the winds function would be virtually useless.Iz

You are right, this feature is really not needed in the sim. It would make the sim more realistic though. You would also think this feature would be an easy to simulate.Christian