As a practical note, for our ops I've never even seen a conditioned air cart! And since it plugs directly into the mix manifold, all it can give you is cool/warm air for the cabin, so no coffee. On very hot days, during extended delays with a U/S APU, we can ask for a huffer cart to power one or more packs to provide cool air - that's the best we've got in that respect. Ryan mailed me the NGX introduction document, in order that I can find which particular systems/options ZWP has (I'm going to have to fly it again to check, I can't remember them all off the top of my head!) I'm utterly amazed at the level of detail they have included, it's absolutely staggering. I've just finished reading the 'Details and Quirks' section, and the Beta teams input - totally amazing levels of detail here, which must be completely overwhelming for the average user (which many here are NOT I must add, collective knowledge amongst high-end sim users is itself very detailed) I'm sure it's been said before, but 70USD for this level of detail is more than reasonable. A lot more.

I would just like to add my sincere thanks to Simon for all this truly amazing information Simon, it's especially poignant for me at the moment, as I very recently underwent some pretty heavy duty brain surgery, to remove some ‘yuk’. As a result, I’m not really in a position to fly the magnificent NGX (much ) Shhhh.... don't tell. Much as that pains me, it’s a BRILLIANT alternative to be able to read all this data you’re providing. Thank you very much indeed – I am in your debt – have beer on me! (when you have the time!) And that also applied all other RW and FS pilots here too (err…. Except the beer of course – I’m not rich!) Can't believe PMDG haven't 'stickied' this. Guess they've got something else afoot.....

But I'd better get our crew on the ground in the meantime... Just to recap, we're on final approach, either hand flying visually, or on A/P with VOR/LOC and GS modes active, and SPEED mode for the A/T (or, of course hand flying using the FD as an aid, with those modes active). We've configured for landing, the the Flaps are at 30 or 40, and we've bugged our planned speed for the landing. A couple of points on that - the rule is to add half the headwind component, and the full gust factor to your Vref (which you got from the FMC). To give an example, assuming a perfect headwind of 10 kts, gusting to 15kts down the runway, we would take our Vref (lets say 145KIAS), add half the headwind (10/2 = 5), and the full gust factor (5), to give us 145 + 10 = a bugged speed of 155KIAS. Note that we use the headwind component only - so if we have a 10kt crosswind, we'll still only add the default minimum of 5kts to our Vref. When doing an autoland, since there are more restrictive wind limitations, you will always add just 5kts to Vref, and the A/T is assumed to be good enough to handle things accurately. All this adding speed to our Vref comes at a cost however - increased landing roll distances, a greater propensity for the aircraft to 'float' along the runway if you let it, and increased levels of kinetic energy that the brakes must absorb. So don't start adding to your speed unnecessarily, and try to fly it accurately. The whole point of adding to the speed is to give you the required safety margin to prevent fluctuating wind conditions from causing a problem - so let the speed fluctuate around your bugged speed, you don't need to keep the speed above the bugged speed the whole time. (Before we continue, I should mention an item that I forgot previously - mainly 'cause I'm so bad at remembering this IRL too!) Ten minutes prior to the estimated landing time, we call our cabin crew over the PA and announce 'Ten minutes to landing', while switching on the Fasten Belts signs if we haven't already done so. If they are on, we'll often just switch them on and off quickly just so the chime will catch the cabin crews attention. The cabin crew will then completely secure the cabin for landing - prior to this, as they sensed the aircraft begin it's descent at TOD, they would have begun the process by asking passengers to turn off laptops, fold away tray tables etc. Now, they make sure that all seats are upright, everybody is strapped in, all window blinds open (maximum light in the cabin in the event of a complete loss of power for some reason), and if it's night, they will turn off almost all the cabin lighting to prepare everyones eyes for a possible evacuation at night. This is also the point where parents travelling with babies discover that their offspring has let loose a particularly foul dirty nappy. In my case, since I'm often terrible at remembering the ten minute call, a sheepish 'Er...five minutes to landing' is given. Sorry guys! Luckily they're normally all pro's at this, and get it sorted out quickly. Once they've got it all under control, they will let us know that the cabin is secure for landing. This is often the final requirement for PF to call for the Approach Checklist, despite that checklist only occupying one line in our procedures (altimeters!) However, for us to complete this, we must check - cabin secure, anti ice status, inbound courses (a note on this later), navaids on correct frequencies and identified, correct altimeter pressure setting is up and the altimeters have been crosschecked, ie the PM will call 'Passing 9500'.....now!', to which the PF will respond 'Checks', if it does, or '50' low' for example. Again, a simple checklist has triggered a series of actions/checks. Once the aircaft has been fully configured, the PF will call for the 'Landing checklist', which as usual the PM will read as a 'challenge and response' list where we just verify that all the actions have been completed already. The aircraft is now confirmed as fully configured and in a safe state to land. For FS, most of these actions can be done as per the real aircraft, baring the interaction with the cabin crew, and of course there is minimal cross checking since there is no other crewmember. Multi crew flying is a whole subject by itself, and products such as FS2Crew are an attempt to remedy this single crew feeling of FS. I have no experience of that though, since when I fly FS I want to fly by myself! Working with another person in the cockpit can be both incredibly beneficial (you can catch each others mistakes and delegate work to keep your ability to concentrate), but it can be very tricky in emergencies (or even in normal day to day ops) when a lot is happening and time is of the essence - being able to communicate your concerns/plans/intentions clearly and concisely is absolutely critical and the plan is to turn the crew into a synchonised team, as opposed to two knowledgeable individuals who happen to be in the same cockpit together. It can be tricky. Depending on traffic, we would be about to receive our clearance to land at this point - sometimes, the traffic ahead can occupy the runway until we're only 500' from touchdown, but ATC normally keeps that to a minimum. At 1000' above the runway we will have our first 'in the slot' check. Some of the key points to be 'in the slot' are: Fully configured to land, landing checklist completed, no more than half scale deflection of the localiser or glideslope if not on a visual approach, nose withing 30* of runway heading if turning on a visual approach, engines spooled up to above 50% N1 to ensure rapid thrust response in the event of a go-around, no more than 1000fpm rate of descent, not below Vref, and no more than Vref + 20 (the max allowable correction factor). If any of these factors are not met, a Go-Around should be called by either pilot. We can however, in VMC conditions, relax this slightly to the second, and final 'gate' at 500' AGL. However, below 800' AGL, not meeting any of these conditions will trigger an alert on our QA (quality assurance) monitor, and the crewmember will be contacted and asked to explain what happened later. Not meeting the required conditions below 500' AGL is cause for an immediate, no questions asked go-around that either pilot MUST call. Our QA team is a group of fellow pilots, and the intent is to pursue exceedences in a non-punitive fashion - pilots are encouraged to immediately report exceedences before they are even contacted about them, and their is no stigma attached to doing so - the intent is to gather statistical data to spot trends, provide remedial training if need be, and analyse risk. The culture of being able to own up to mistakes is an important one - being able to do 10000 successful landings without ever making an error of judgement is not something to be expected of any normal human, so we must be able to adapt procedures around human error, and ultimately it adds to safety. Abnormal occurences are summarised and reported on our occurence notice board in order that we may all learn from it. So, assuming it's going well, the PM will call '1000', in the slot', then '500' in the slot' at the appropriate times. These calls are made based on barometric, not radar altitude. If doing an ILS approach and the weather is expected to be bad, the F/O will always be doing the flying at this point. I won't go into too much detail here, but the we do what is called a 'monitored approach' where the F/O flies the aircraft down to minimums, and the Captain then takes over if he/she can see the field. But in good weather, we will just stick to whoever is the PF - in visual conditons we won't even bother with a 'Hundred above' (100' to go to decision altitude) call, but a lot of the aircraft have an 'approaching minimums' callout anyway. At minimums, some will also call 'Minimums', but not all do (reading the NGX docs, these variations are all configurable, as per the real deal). In practice, we as pilots have no ability to set these things ourselves - they are set by software package changes, and despite it being relatively easy, it can cost a fortune to get it done, hence the propensity to leaving such diverse settings on a single fleet. Strange but true apparently. All about the $$$. (Ask a class of student pilots: 'What keeps an aircraft in the air?' and you will receive a lot of theory on Bernoulli, angle of attack, lift co-efficients etc etc, but the real answer is, of course, M O N E Y!) Again, radar alt callouts may or may not be being called out by the aircraft. Not only do callouts vary, but so does volume. It's quite funny to watch both crew jump as the aircraft calls out '50!!!!!' in a loud voice! One of ours, just to be different, calls out '50', but then nothing else. If you sit there waiting for anything else, then next thing you'll feel is your main gear slamming into the runway. Most of our -800's call '50, 30, 20...' at the least. It's surprising how used to this countdown one gets, hence the pronounced sense of deafening silence when they don't say anything. At about 20', assuming a nice stable approach, the nose is raised slightly, the thrust levers are retarded (holding a little thrust on, while not ideal, can cushion the landing a little, but try not to do it) and the flare begins. Now, the critical task here is to get on the ground and start stopping! If you attempt to hold it off and let it settle down itself, it will merrily fly along just above the ground until halfway down the runway, and you'll probably run off the end. Compared to light aircraft, this is a very pronounced jet habit. The actuall stall, apart from being different due to the whole swept wing thing, is quite a lot slower than you're currently travelling, so just raise the nose enough not to slam into the ground, and let it fly onto the runway. Trying for a 'greaser' is asking for trouble, but that said it is entirely possible to land smoothly, and more importantly, in the touchdown zone! Getting it wrong in the -800 is quite easy though. It's slightly harder to land than the -400 for example, despite not being that much bigger, and since it's more flexible in general, this can result in an odd feeling of flapping around as the wings bounce up and down! I over-thought my very first landing on the real plane, and planted it down pretty spectacularly (first flights of course are done on the line, with normal passengers, the rating having been fully completed in the simulator), but then just did what I thought was right for the next one, which was very smooth (*cough* if I may say so myself!) From then on I've never had a problem. Again, the important point is getting it down. Once the main gear touches down, smoothly control the nosegear down onto the ground (don't attempt to let it float along above the ground) and make sure the speedbrakes come up - the PM should call 'Speedbrakes up', or not, as the case may be. To start stopping, it's important to use everything you can - this means reverse thrust, spoilers, and wheel brakes. Since the engines take time to spool up from idle, getting it into reverse promptly is important. In the real plane, this results in a lot of frantic tugging by new pilots, since the reverse thrust levers won't go beyond a certain point until the reverser sleeves have actually moved into position. Once this has happened, the levers will happily move and tend to slip into a detent which gives about 75%N1 (Don't go above go-around N1, but you have to pull REALLY hard to get there with the -800 in my experience). Meanwhile, as the speedbrakes come up, you should feel the aircraft settle it's weight onto the main gear quite noticeably and commence the usual -800 waggling around as the wings flex. If you haven't selected any autobrake, you should be taking up the slack on the brake pedals just to get a feel for braking action, but if you've done everything right, not much in the way of wheelbrake pressure will be needed to make a reasonable high speed taxiway turnoff. The -800 is takes considerably more brake pressure to achieve decent braking compared to the older 737's - I'm not sure why, but to stop quickly you really need to stand on the pedals hard. On the classics, the same pressure would have the antiskid vibrating away, but I can't even recall getting an -800 onto the antiskid system at all although I might have just not noticed. The PF now just needs to keep directional control, and modulate the braking force applied in order to make the planned taxiway exit. If using autobrake, this system will command a certain rate of decelleration, regardless of how this is achieved, ie if you use a lot of reverse thrust, it won't use quite as much wheelbrake pressure in order to maintain the commanded rate of decelleration. It's a lot smoother than the old system on the good 'ol -200's which, while it worked, could be very jerky. Autobrake 1 is very light, 2 will be the minimum needed in most places, and anything beyond is slghtly unusual for our operations, although 3 does get used sometimes. The recommended method for turning off the autobrakes (apart from overiding them by pushing on the pedals) is to lower the speedbrake lever - turning the switch off manually while rolling down the runway is not recommended (I'm speaking under correction, but I seem to remember a warning, that at a high speeds, if you slipped the switch into RTO, you may end up eating the panel) Through 60KIAS, the PM will call '60 knots', and the reversers are smoothly stowed. The Captain will have to take control now if he was the PM, since the tiller will be needed again to taxi. The F/O then runs about the cockpit stowing the flaps, turning off pitot heating, switching the landing lights off and turning the runway turnoff and taxi lights on if they weren't already, the weather radar is switched off (via the Capt and F/O EFIS control panel as usual), the transponder is turned off, and the autobrake selector is turned off if it was used. I also run the pitch trim to about 5 units since it will still be able to move fast if the flaps are still running - once they're up it will go back into 'slow' mode, which makes setting up the next trim setting a pain. I tend to set up the next frequency for the taxi now (while landing, we have tower active, and I keep approach on standby as opposed to setting up the ground frequency, that way in case of a go-around I just need to click approach to active when needed as opposed to fiddling with frequencies) The tower controller will normally hand us over to the ground controller after giving us our initial taxi clearance, although in Johannesburg, with it's parallel runways, we are now kept on the tower frequencies (there is one for each runway) until we are completely clear of all runways. The ground controller will ask us for out parking bay if the tower controller didn't already, and will then issue taxi clearances to get us there. Crossing any active runways we do the christmas tree thing and turn our lights/strobes on for increased visibility. Approaching the parking bay, the F/O will normally always start the APU unless we have been told that a GPU will be waiting for us. As we turn into the parking bay, the Captain will turn of all taxi and runways turnoff lights to avoid blinding the marshaller, even if we're using an electronic marshalling board. The aircraft is eased into the parking bay, and stopped at the correct point, where the Captain will apply the parking brake. The end. Not quite! The F/O will put the APU onto the electrical buses (both sides), which will kick the engine driven generators off the bus, and announce 'APU on the bus'. (One of the 737's electrical 'rules' is that 'oncoming power has priority', ie whatever you switch on, will kick off what was there already. Another rule is that you must always actively switch something in this regard to effect a change, ie simply starting the APU won't make it power the bus automatically). The engines can now be shutdown without a loss of electrical power to the aircraft. The Captain then shuts down both engines by moving the start levers to cutoff, and both engines begin to spool down. Once this is done, the F/O turns off the fasten belts signs (although half the passengers are probably already out of their seats looking for their bags anyway), turns off the fuel pumps except the #1 tank left switch if the APU is running, turns off the electrical hydraulic pumps, sets the packs as needed (normally both on, with the isolation valve to 'open'), and turns off the anti-collision light. This allows the engineer to approach the aircraft and plug his headseat in to interrupt the 'Shutdown checklist', which the Captain has just called for. Once we complete the checklist, the Captain and Engineer will discuss any technical issues we picked up on the flight, and the fuel figure for the next one. The Captain will often then run away for a smoke/conversation with his stockbroker/stand and smile at the passengers, or whatever he or she feels like while the F/O completes all the details in the flightplan (ie block time, flight time, fuel burn etc) and transfers these details to the aircrafts technical log. The flight times and fuel burn are then radio'd to operations to be entered into the computerised, real time monitoring system. We only have 30 minutes to offload all passengers, do a basic cleanup of the cabin, fuel the aircraft, and load the next load of passengers before we do it all again. The F/O gets the ATIS for the next flight, updates the planned ZFW from the trim office, passed them any restrictions and then sets up the cockpit again for the next leg - this can be done more quickly than the first time around, as not too many things need to be changed. And off we go again......... At the end of the day, we collect all the paperwork, clean up the cockpit so it's presentable for the next bunch of guys, and get off the aircraft after all the passengers have disembarked. The cabin crew will cash up and account for all the galley stock before handing it over to the ground staff, or the next crew. We will have a chat to the engineer, who will assume responsibility for the aircraft, or the next crew. We then disappear through the terminal to the (hopefully) waiting crew bus, which shuttles us back to our operations office where the F/O hands in the paperwork and fuel slips. Then, we are officially done for the day :) And thats it! Must go to work now.....I must add my apologies for all the typo's grammar errors etc, since it was all typed pretty fast. There are no doubt quite a few omissions etc, hopefully none too serious. Enjoy though, ask away if needed.

Thanks for sharing this insight in real world 737 operation.

Thanks for the insight! Couple of questions: Do you maintain Vref + X until the flair, or let the speed come back to Vref as you cross the threashold? Also, reduce thrust takeoffs. An indepth subject I know, but you can use derate, assumed temp or both. How/when would you decide which to use? Many thanks.

I've just cut and pasted Simon's text (no replies) into a Word document and it totals nearly 15,000 words or 25 pages of highly interesting reading. PMDG should seriously consider pinning this thread.

Hey Simon Thanks for all the great information! I have a question for you. I've heard several people claiming to be pilots state that flying in FS is much harder then the real thing. I of course have only flown a cessna once for a brief moment so I would have no idea. What are the differences as far as challenging goes?

I've just cut and pasted Simon's text (no replies) into a Word document and it totals nearly 15,000 words or 25 pages of highly interesting reading. PMDG should seriously consider pinning this thread.

I love this signature....

Thanks for the insight! Couple of questions: Do you maintain Vref + X until the flair, or let the speed come back to Vref as you cross the threashold? Also, reduce thrust takeoffs. An indepth subject I know, but you can use derate, assumed temp or both. How/when would you decide which to use? Many thanks.

The flight crew training manual will have a little more on, this, but continuing the theme of 'off the top of my head', the simple answer is 'no' - try to keep you target speed until the flare is begun and thrust is reduced to idle. In real life, on a calm day, the average line pilot can hold target speed within a knot or two (literally), often pegging it exactly on the numbers. Due to the weight (inertia) and stability of the aircraft, it tends to remain reasonably stable in both attitude and speed, so this isn't quite as hard as it may sound. Reduced thrust take-offs for us are simple in practice (I'll avoid the theory right now) - our electronic flight bag software will look at runway length, temperature, aircraft weight, pressure and spit out an appropriate flap setting, a set of V speeds, and a thrust reduction setting in the form of an assumed temperature. We therefore always use the assumed temperature method. We never use a fixed derate for a take-off. Climb thrust however, will be derated automatically by the FMC to ensure that when climb thrust is selected after take-off, the thrust does not increase. The FMC will decide on CLB, CLB 1, or CLB 2 automatically, which if I remember correctly are simple fixed derates. Again, this is all off the top of my head.

Hey Simon Thanks for all the great information! I have a question for you. I've heard several people claiming to be pilots state that flying in FS is much harder then the real thing. I of course have only flown a cessna once for a brief moment so I would have no idea. What are the differences as far as challenging goes?

Flying in FS, ie just the act of controlling the aircraft is actually harder than IRL, in my opinion. It's debatable, but here's why I think so - In FS, your view is very limited - you have almost no peripheral vision, you have no feedback on motion (which can't always be trusted in the aircraft of course, but at least you can feel if there is motion at all!), and the controls in a real aircraft are generally more smooth and responsive, with more accurate feedback that the sim. I find real aircraft to be more easily trimmed to settle into a steady state too. I used to teach people to fly (I have about 2000 hours of flight instruction), and I have seen a wide variety of students who have come from other 'flying' hobbies, be they model aircraft, or flight sims. As an aside, one of the model aircraft pilots I taught just happened to be one of the best students I ever had - I merely had to tell him how to do something and he could do it almost faultlessly. The sim pilots also caught on very fast - one point that I would always have to repeat constantly to the majority with this background though was 'Look out the window!' - sim pilots tended to focus on the instruments all the time, having come from a background where the view out the window was tiny. Sims in general (and this applies to the full motion sims that we train on too surprisingly) tend to never be able to 'settle' in a constant state - real aircraft can be trimmed for specific conditions more easily, in my experience. The initial feeling of flying is a little bit overwhelming, and the visual and aural (it's a lot louder for example, even with headsets) stimulus is a lot more powerful than sitting in front of a computer, but once these conditions are accepted, sim pilots catch on far more quickly than somebody with no background whatsoever. Thats my opinion, which may well differ from others - but I do have my reasons, having seen a wide variety of sims, and how people with FS backgrounds respond to actual RL training.

Sims in general (and this applies to the full motion sims that we train on too surprisingly) tend to never be able to 'settle' in a constant state - real aircraft can be trimmed for specific conditions more easily, in my experience.

This has been my experience as well, and is really quite amazing, as that natural stability "should" be able to be simulated quite easily with software. What is even more remarkable, is that while these "Modern PC" and "Advanced Simulators" seem to suffer from this lack of trim stability, I have an old, 70's "Pacer MKII" simulator, that DOES achieve this stability. No computers here, ( way before computers !!) just a mass of 741 OP Amps, but it is far more realistic to fly than MSFS, as far as the trim is concerned. http://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/view/1978/1978%20-%201127.html

The sim pilots also caught on very fast - one point that I would always have to repeat constantly to the majority with this background though was 'Look out the window!' - sim pilots tended to focus on the instruments all the time, having come from a background where the view out the window was tiny.

When i started training, my instructor would always yell that to me. What he wanted me to do (since we were talking about VFR flight) was to never look at the panel while straight and level. Of course, i could never do that. What i did was take short glances at my panel, at the VSI and altitude indicator, maybe at the compass from time to time (we used a plane with no artificial horizon). Not only did that helped me fly a lot better than others, but it also gave me faster a better understanding of what straight and level actually feels like.

Simon, thanks again for all the work you put in!If PMDG ever does include the shared cockpit feature, you could charge sim pilots to be their F/O. ...I would pay. :(

Just another info on potable water used also for coffee:The pressurization comes from the pneumatic system, but the potable water system tubing have some check valves that prevent the air to come back to the pneumatic manifold. This means that if the water tank is already pressurized, you can do more a couple of coffees plus the water stored inside the boiler.Another way to pressurize water is through the ground access panel for the potable water, there is an air connection to do this.Some airplanes (check P6-3 panel) have a Potable water compressor, this compressor is AC powered and supplies pressurized air to the tank if pressure is low.

Interesting...I'm here to learn too, thanks. Ok, I actually have the NGX now - well done to PMDG on an excellent product! Now.......I wanted to upload a typical turnaround panel state, and a preliminary options setup for ZWP (not finalised, I'm actually going to have to go and find one of our engineers to get some of the details!), but this forum says 'You aren't permitted to upload this kind of file' or something to that effect - is there a correct way to do this? This is a lame question, I know...