I know I will sound lazy, but let me first say that I did run the tutorial flight for the MD-11X last night. That said, I typically don't have time to do much in fsx but get in and fly. I am wondering if there is way to quickly configure the plane for take off by setting just the items that need to be set. I have completed several flights with no problems, but I get the stabilizer warning on take off and it feels sloppy. Now obviously, this plane was meant to learn in its entirety, but Until time allows, I would like to just complete some manual flights by setting the panel state to taxi, clicking a few buttons, and fying usually no more than an hour long flight. Is there a way to do this or some quick setup sheet to help me (continue to be lazy) just do the minimum for now until I have time to learn the rest? Thanks in advance for any help.Pete

I strongly suggest you set up the INIT page with the weights and balance stuff, ZFW, ZFWCG, FOB, and so on, and some basic stuff in PERF and TO pages, so that the vspeeds are correct for your weight, you wouldn't want to be trying to rotate too early on a shorter field now...This generally takes less than 5 minutes of your time, once you are used to the functions...Going from a short or long turn around to ready to taxi shouldn't take too long once you are aware of the buttons... Though it is not really a "kick the tyres and light the fires" kind of plane, it certainly isn't a J3 Cub... :(I get a lot of enjoyment out of this preflight... there is something rewarding, a warm feeling, when you lift off at the correct settings and climbout is as smooth as butter... Oops, did I just say that? Time to get out more me thinks...:(Andrew

I strongly suggest you set up the INIT page with the weights and balance stuff, ZFW, ZFWCG, FOB, and so on, and some basic stuff in PERF and TO pages, so that the vspeeds are correct for your weight, you wouldn't want to be trying to rotate too early on a shorter field now...This generally takes less than 5 minutes of your time, once you are used to the functions...Going from a short or long turn around to ready to taxi shouldn't take too long once you are aware of the buttons... Though it is not really a "kick the tyres and light the fires" kind of plane, it certainly isn't a J3 Cub... :(I get a lot of enjoyment out of this preflight... there is something rewarding, a warm feeling, when you lift off at the correct settings and climbout is as smooth as butter... Oops, did I just say that? Time to get out more me thinks...:(Andrew

O.k. so if I set up these pages then I can still fly without the autopilot and authothrottle? I do agree that when I did the tutorial a couple of nights ago, and the bird departed and took over at 6,000 ft it was as cool as can be. Given that repitition (I know from this as I am a private real world pilot) is generally the road to mastery. Unfortunately, I fear that I will not get to the repeat the tasks as often as I would like. Thanks for the reponse and much appreciated!

O.k. so if I set up these pages then I can still fly without the autopilot and authothrottle? I do agree that when I did the tutorial a couple of nights ago, and the bird departed and took over at 6,000 ft it was as cool as can be. Given that repitition (I know from this as I am a private real world pilot) is generally the road to mastery. Unfortunately, I fear that I will not get to the repeat the tasks as often as I would like. Thanks for the reponse and much appreciated!

I too am a time-deprived person. Personally, I love the time it takes to start and program the bird. A long cruise can be pretty monotonous, so having to do more than push "Ctrl E" and throttle up is nice. That said, If you want to fly it without the FMC, be sure to at least trim for takeoff and set the flaps to 22 using the dial-a-flap, and as someone noted, set the v speeds. Otherwise, you'll get ######ing betty all over you and that's no fun. One thing I will say in defense of the FMC is that because it accepts FSX plans, you can load one of those crappy plans and instantly get it in the FMC, unlike the others where you have to either have a third party program or type in the plan, which on a bird that can fly for 12 hours can take awhile.

I too am a time-deprived person. Personally, I love the time it takes to start and program the bird. A long cruise can be pretty monotonous, so having to do more than push "Ctrl E" and throttle up is nice. That said, If you want to fly it without the FMC, be sure to at least trim for takeoff and set the flaps to 22 using the dial-a-flap, and as someone noted, set the v speeds. Otherwise, you'll get ######ing betty all over you and that's no fun. One thing I will say in defense of the FMC is that because it accepts FSX plans, you can load one of those crappy plans and instantly get it in the FMC, unlike the others where you have to either have a third party program or type in the plan, which on a bird that can fly for 12 hours can take awhile.

Are you saying that I can just load a plan into FSX and then the FMC will basically be ready to go? I apologize if I misunderstood you, and where would I find those FSX plans in the program? By the way, one other question: YOu mentioned above about setting the stab trim so as not to get the annoying beeping. That is what the problem is mainly. It seems that once i set the flaps (usually just 15 deg.) that no matter what I do the the stab never appears to be in the green line where is should be. Yesterday and help down the "1" number key and rand the trim from 0.0 all the way to 11.1 and never saw a green number appear to say the bird was trimmed right. That seems to not make sense to me, so is there a trick here?

The FMC needs to be set up during preflight so it knows which trim value will give you the green.

Pete,Spend the time setting up all the systems and then save the flight. This should save the panel state, so all you have to do is load the flight enter a few bits anf bobs in the CDU and hey presto, up up and away.

Are you saying that I can just load a plan into FSX and then the FMC will basically be ready to go? I apologize if I misunderstood you, and where would I find those FSX plans in the program? By the way, one other question: YOu mentioned above about setting the stab trim so as not to get the annoying beeping. That is what the problem is mainly. It seems that once i set the flaps (usually just 15 deg.) that no matter what I do the the stab never appears to be in the green line where is should be. Yesterday and help down the "1" number key and rand the trim from 0.0 all the way to 11.1 and never saw a green number appear to say the bird was trimmed right. That seems to not make sense to me, so is there a trick here?

2 things: As Dan mentions, you may have to do some light initialization: i.e., right click to pull up TOGW, etc., so it knows where "green is". I've certainly taken off without a flight plan but since I like the v speed calls, I always do a little work work so I don't get yelled at by the machine. Second, as for the flight plans, if you use FSX default planner (which I will note is generally bad, but easy), you literally plan a flight like you would in a default plane, and then when you start the FMC, its there, either under FS shortcuts, or comes up automatically when you enter some basic info like location and maybe destination. (I don't have the manual in front of me, but I've never had a problem loading an FSX plan.) I will say though, that once you start using the FMC and flying a lot, you may find you no longer want to use the ATC and default flight planner, especially on approaches because you lose all the fun of flying a published STAR to landing. But, that's up to you.

If starting from the normal engines running config (ie, create from Free Flight), I can get the plane completely preflighted for most shorter range flights, including FMS setup with manual route entry in about 5 minutes. I'd strongly recommend getting used to how the flow goes, you can do it very quickly once you know what you're doing.

Pete,Spend the time setting up all the systems and then save the flight. This should save the panel state, so all you have to do is load the flight enter a few bits anf bobs in the CDU and hey presto, up up and away.

This may not be so bad. I saved every step of the tutorial flight (literally) , so can I simply use that as the start and just load different flight plan and go? Or wil this not work and just mess up the whole thing? I know I can go home and try this but of course I am at work as usual so thinking about getting on the sim machine makes the day go faster (the life of a tax CPA in October).

What I do when I start a quick flight like this is just use the Free Flight (Create a Flight in FS9) screen, and set the airport, runway, time etc. This should load the plane ready to go on the runway with the engines running - you just have to configure the flaps, autobrakes, program the FMS, and set up the FCP autopilot controls and you're ready to fly.

What I do when I start a quick flight like this is just use the Free Flight (Create a Flight in FS9) screen, and set the airport, runway, time etc. This should load the plane ready to go on the runway with the engines running - you just have to configure the flaps, autobrakes, program the FMS, and set up the FCP autopilot controls and you're ready to fly.

Well now that a couple of weeks have passed, I have become very proficient with using the FMC, and can't seem to live without it anymore. There is one thing I still can't seem to make work and that is loading a FSX flight plan into the FMC (either the MD-11 or 747 as I now have both of these). I am wondering if there is a step that I am missing when loading these plans (I know the default FSX plans suck!). That said, the 747 comes with quite a few preset flight plans to chose from, but the MD-11 only comes with a few. So if I don't want to fly one of those routes, it seems I am out of luck. I have tried to load the 747 plans into the md-11 but with no luck, probably because one uses the rte extension and the other uses rt2. Since the flight plans are essential to flying either bird, I am wondering if there is a simple way to generate even a basic flight plan that will be compatible with these PMDG birds. I have tried a converter I found on the net but this also did not seem to work. If anyone has ideas as to how to generate these plans in FSX and get them to come up in the FMC it would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, PeteP.S. I tried Doug's suggestion above and the fSX plan did show up under the "COROUTE" LSK, but when i tried to activate it I got an error message and it would not load.

Search for a program called vRoute; I've used it with fairly good success.As far as major routes that airlines typically travel, this will work great for exporting a flight plan to FS2004 or FSX, and loading it up into the FMS after the file has been saved to the flight plan folder, and loaded from the flight plan menu in the game. Just initialize the FMS as normal (inputting the departure and arrival info) and the fixes and whatnot should load.In regards to making custom routes, that takes a bit more effort. This is a good website to start with: http://www.fsroute.com/Hope this helps out somewhat.BTW: When exporting, just use the default for FS2004 or FSX, instead of the PMDG-specific option.

Search for a program called vRoute; I've used it with fairly good success.As far as major routes that airlines typically travel, this will work great for exporting a flight plan to FS2004 or FSX, and loading it up into the FMS after the file has been saved to the flight plan folder, and loaded from the flight plan menu in the game. Just initialize the FMS as normal (inputting the departure and arrival info) and the fixes and whatnot should load.In regards to making custom routes, that takes a bit more effort. This is a good website to start with: http://www.fsroute.com/Hope this helps out somewhat.BTW: When exporting, just use the default for FS2004 or FSX, instead of the PMDG-specific option.

Thanks for your response, I went to the website for vroute and it seems to cost somewhere in $35 range. I don't suppose there are any freeware programs that will do this? If not I will definitely try to familiarize myself with the custom flight planning via the link you sent. I guess it doesn't hurt to learn something new. Thanks again!

Thanks for your response, I went to the website for vroute and it seems to cost somewhere in $35 range. I don't suppose there are any freeware programs that will do this? If not I will definitely try to familiarize myself with the custom flight planning via the link you sent. I guess it doesn't hurt to learn something new. Thanks again!

One thing I've used with success (for free) is simroutes.com. You can create a flight plan using stored routes or routes you create yourself. Note that you will have know the route first. It won't just create one. So, you either need charts or you need to find a route (like on flightaware.com). (I do both, depending on the time I have available.)After creating the route, you can save and download the plan in the PMDG format. If you're using Vista, I recommend that you download to the desktop and THEN drag to the PMDG/Flightplans folder, as Vista's nanny might not actually download it to the folder. (There's other threads on this.) Name it whatever you want and drop it in the folder. When you go to the FMS, it should pop up through the coroute box. This usually works flawlessly. Sometimes, if there's a waypoint that's new, it will screw it up/not be accepted. In the 747, I've had problems with the transatlantic lat/lon fixes being accepted, but the MD-11 works well most of the time.Give it a whirl, I like it. Its free, so YMMV.