Don

Thanks, Mitchell, for the great info, and I agree that that J41's FMS holds some surprises in store for those who read the real manuals or experiment a bit with it in flight.A useful function I found is in the VNAV pages during a flight. As you might recall from the tutorial, among the inputs to the FMS in flight prep and during flight is the setting of waypoint altitudes...in other words, establishing the desired (if not required) vertical profile of your flight plan. Once that's done and you're in the air, you can refer to the VNAV pages of the FMS for a review of your waypoint altitudes...and it also displays your anticipated altitude (which is constantly updated in real time) at the next waypoint given your current flight configuration -- speed, altitude, and any vertical ascent or descent rate. I've found this very handy in managing my autopilot ascents and descents during the flight so that I hit the next waypoint right on the required numbers re altitude...perfect for keeping ATC happy by meeting those crossing restrictions.Hope this is useful.

Excellent point, Rudi.Even though the FMS in the J41 is not VNAV-coupled to the autopilot the VNAV page 1 makes it relatively simple to plan and manage descents since it displays both the required and actual rates of descent (provided, of course, you enter the target altitudes as you describe).Mitchell