Hey guys. First, I apologise for all my questions. My only promise is that I will give back to the community as much as I take from it! I have a few questions about airways. I didn't used to know they existed, but does anybody have a guide to them? If I want to plan routes with the 737NGX (I am a LONG way from doing that) can I use real world flight plans? I'm not sure how many of these routes exist within the addon. Also, where I live (Tonbridge, UK) I always hear/see jets flying over head with their landing lights on. they are headed west for London Gatwick (I believe this would be Runway 26L). Do you think the airway that these jets are on would exist in the addon? I would love to recreate the overhead jets when I am well trained enough (yes, I am very...very sad :) ). But um, yeah, are there any idiots guides to airways available? The complexity of this thing is utterly staggering.

Yes, to answer your question, airways are modeled in the NGX. Essentially, airways are like highways in the sky. Controllers use them to maintain proper traffic separation. However, the planes flying over your house are flying approaches, which are off of airways and within the terminal environment. That said, it might be helpful to go to your local library and grab a basic flying manual. I'm in the US, so I don't have a particular suggestion. Here, I would suggest the FAR/AIM (FAA published Airman Info Manual) or the Instrument Flying Handbook (by Jeppesen). This is just too much info to boil down into a post. Not a great answer, but there you have it. Good luck, and whatever you decide to do to learn this stuff, just be patient and have fun. Cheers Trevor Moore

An airway, or Jetway for high altitude flying, is a route that airplanes fly to get from point to point. The airway is a string of airspace fixes that airplanes travel between in sequence to get to another point along that sequence. In a flight plan an airway will look like this "SEA J523 IMB." This is code for start at SEA (Seattle) and take the J523 route to the IMB (Kimberly) VOR. On your FMC interface (whose proper name always escapes me) it would look something like my crude drawing below. BOLD indicates that is something you enter in. VIA_______TODIRECT__SEAJ523_____IMB It is actually quite simple once you get it. As Trevor said above though, the airplanes you see are likely not on an airway anymore. They may be on a STAR (Standard Terminal Arrival Route), which act like a Jetway, except they are composed of altitude restrictions that bring airplanes down into the airport and set the, up for the approach. Depending on where you live, they may be on the approach already. They might also be on ATC vectors, but I don't know how common that is by London. The airways that are in your NGX are actually provided by Navigraph, not PMDG. For the most part they are accurate and near a busy airport I would expect them to be mostly accurate, so I would bet they (Being the Airways, STARs, and runway approaches) are there.

A good place to see how airways are used is the tutorial flight ! You will then see the advice given above in practise. Have fun with it.Don't be afraid to experiment.

thank you very much, I am losing entire evenings to this thing...good thing my girlfriend is away on work atm! :)