Inspired by Captain BBall's article on Frugals, I decided to try FLCH below 10,000 ft. as oposed to my usual v/s method. Anyway it works well, however, I find that the v/s when changing altitude (particularly when decending) is severe...I feel like I am pointed straight down. How do you control this ? and what is the relationship with speed. During my decent from 5000 to 3000 I was slowing down to 170 knts from 190 knts and the v/s was -2500. thanks for the help.Mark.

I don't know what you mean by "feel like i am pointed straight down"? Is it pointed straight down or not? Here is what mine looks like while decending via FL CH:Best Wishes,Randy J. [email protected]" A little learning is a dangerous thing"

Guys,Obviously the angle in which the descent happens depends on the selected speed on the MCP; the greater the speed, the steeper the descent. Also, you have to keep in mind that the FL CH lets you control the throttle on descent, and it tries to match the speed of the aircraft with the speed selected on the MCP. Now, if you have throttles on idle, and have selected 300 on the MCP, obviously it will have to pitch way down to achieve those conditions.When the a/c reaches 1000ft above the desired altitude, the A/T takes over the throttle control.Hope this helped :)Tero

Mark, if you're doing -2500 fpm while slowing from 190 to 170 KIAS, you're using a bad flight model. The plane you're using 767PIC with is not good. Even steady at 190 KIAS, it's impossible to have such a rate of descent (unless you have gear, flaps and spoilers hanging out).With FL CH, PITCH attitude is always used to gather the speed in the speed window on the MCP. In the descent, thrust will go to IDLE and pitch will be varied to keep the set speed. In the descent, thrust will go up to the climb thrust limit and once again, pitch will be used to acquire the speed. So if you're slow, nose will drop to get back on speed, if you're faster than the speed setting, nose will rise to slow down. (Only when you're making really small altitude changes, FL CH will not go completely to idle or to climb thrust)As I state in the "Vertical Speed" thread, v/s is almost never used.Even though your flight model is probably bad, don't be alarmed by high climb/descent rates. Sometimes you will get descent rates of 5000+ fpm and the way you're seated in the real 757 cockpit (great visibility downward and forward) makes it feel like you're pointing straight down, while in fact you're only maybe a few degrees below the horizon with your nose. (You should see captains that flew the 737 before turn white when they do this the first time, the viewpoint in the 737 is very different, smaller windows, poor visibility downward, aircraft nose in the way).The ALT CAPture mode will kick in at a calculated moment before reaching your target altitude. This means that when light and at full thrust, ALT CAP will kick in at 5000' when you're climbing to 10000'! So anyway, what flight model are you using?Iz

Thanks for the feedback, things are clear now. I will have to try this again. I wrote my post from memeory so perhaps the numbers are not exactly correct. I am using PIC/POSKY merge with no modifications. Up to now all performance has been fine and I suspect once I play with FLCH a little more I will sort this out.thanks again for the detailed responses.Mark.