Have you been flying the past few days? Guard has been on fire this week for some reason! It has been my entertainment while flying the NYC-DC shuttle this week!

I have, actually! I actually contributed to 121.5 Monday, when Potomac decided to hand us off to Reagan tower which was 25NM away. I fly the pipeline at 500ft-800ft so naturally couldn't receive or transmit to tower. They figured they had a lost comms with me, but I finally hailed them (albeit very garbled) and the mini ordeal was over.

On PPL checkrides, my FI, who is also a certified examiner, would turn off the whole fancy Garmin moving map stuff and have people navigate by looking out of the window and using VORs and NDBs.I can tell you it was quite a surprise for those who weren't trained by him but decided to do the checkride with him.

Oh I hear ya. We had GNS430s for private, commercial, multi engine and intrument ratings during the training phase. Well most simply don't even know how to really operate the thing in-depth but most sort of know how to make rudimentary use of that moving map. All turned off for all checkrides. Good thing!

I have, actually! I actually contributed to 121.5 Monday, when Potomac decided to hand us off to Reagan tower which was 25NM away. I fly the pipeline at 500ft-800ft so naturally couldn't receive or transmit to tower. They figured they had a lost comms with me, but I finally hailed them (albeit very garbled) and the mini ordeal was over.

When were you flying? I was in IAD doing in-and-outs! We should grab lunch!

Hm, I just tried to throw in a (short) visual approach in the DEP/ARR page by just selecting the runway and entering a 2 mile runway extension, then I wanted to manually add more points referenced to the RX extension point (RX26 in my case). Neither referencing to RW26 nor RX26 works. I either get INVALID ENTRY for a perfectly correct format or for the extension point RX26 more often a NOT IN DATABASE. Sure hope this will work in the SP...

We use this method of WPT's creation a lot in real life, and I sure miss it on the NGX: Creating User Waypoints and using THOSE created Waypoints to create others. Is this what Ryan was mentioning to probably have included in SP1? I hope so!!

Is this what Ryan was mentioning to probably have included in SP1? I hope so!!

I dearly hope as well!!! EDIT - Ok just checked, it's not yet in the hotfix... Doing something like RW04/-2, then RW001130/2 still yields NOT IN DATABASE. Too bad. Although, there seems to be a change after all (although I don't remember 100%). I think when you created an along track waypoint earlier (before the latest hotfix), and then downselected the just created waypoint again, it would show the raw data again (e. g. RW04/-2 instead of RW001). Now it at least shows the waypoint name correctly (RW001), and this is also accessible through the FIX page. But still, creating another one on top of that is still not possible.

Edited September 25, 201114 yr by badderjet

Dang, got my hopes up for a moment, but sadly creating a bearing/distance waypoint off a custom waypoint still fails.

Dang, got my hopes up for a moment, but sadly creating a bearing/distance waypoint off a custom waypoint still fails.

Yep, so still no programmed visuals, all that's left to do now is wait for SP1. Or SP2. Or...

It's a bit better than the latest hotfix... So it's coming along nicely for sure...Patience is a vertu.

What do you mean? The HF in general, or the fact that downselected custom waypoints will now actually show the waypoint name, not the raw data anymore? Well that improvement I have noticed (read above), but the rest still needs major tweaking. But yes, I am patient like crazy, can't you tell.

Think it's time to dig out this old thread again. Maybe I've missed something but so far I can't see much change in waypoint creation with SP1c.I'd still like to be able to:

• reference new waypoints on existing user created waypoints,
• create waypoints on the fly from the REF NAV DATA page as shown in the video.

I just tried something else again as per the video - I can create an along-track waypoint from a runway (e. g. RW14/-2 would work) but not a PBD one. Is this true on the real deal as well?The other thing that's still not fixed is that you still have to take care of where along track waypoints are sorted in. The manual clearly states that when entering something like XXXXX/10 or XXXXX/-10 you shall upselect it onto the original waypoint, and the FMC would take care of inserting it before (/-10) or after (/10) the original waypoint. This still doesn't work, especially not for the /10 case.FCOM Vol I, SP11.9:"[...] Line select the reference waypoint. (The FMC will automatically position the created waypoint to appropriate position.)"Would be very cool to finally have all this functionality in SP2. It's all so close, but still a few details that could need some improvement! EDIT:Ah, and one more interesting thing. Some RNAV procedures like RNAV SIDs have weird waypoint names like DF160 or the like, at least not five letters. Haha, now trying to play around with custom waypoints here can be interesting!Creating a PBD - no problem: DF160123/5 works as expected.However, what about an along track waypoint? Trying DF160/5 triggers a SELECT WAYPOINT page, with "DF" (!) as the waypoint... The FMC seems to think I want to create a PBD referenced on "DF", with "160" as the radial and "5" as the distance - a syntax dilemma? I can understand what the FMC is thinking here - but is there any way to solve the ambiguity?And by the way, DF160/-2 triggers an INVALID ENTRY altogether. And again, most likely because it thinks of an PBD with a negative distance, which it doesn't accept in any way.

Some RNAV procedures like RNAV SIDs have weird waypoint names like DF160 or the like, at least not five letters.

Well, speaking from an ATC and procedure standpoint, the rule for RNAV procedures is that you must not modify them in any way, or enter them manually. You must simply select it from the computer, if available, and EXEC it. Don't touch it. Now from the point of view of the CDU, well, there possibly could be a way to allow you to enter that somehow. Some kind of special syntax.

I can create an along-track waypoint from a runway (e. g. RW14/-2 would work)

Hi,do you have any idea why the distance seems to be limited? I tried on the last flight no higher values than 2 nm were possible? :(

Ah, and one more interesting thing. Some RNAV procedures like RNAV SIDs have weird waypoint names like DF160 or the like, at least not five letters. Haha, now trying to play around with custom waypoints here can be interesting!

Hi!The reason for the weird names are very logical. "DF" is from the last two letters in the airports ICAO-code. The three digit number shows what quadrant it lies in. With the Aerodromes reference point (ARP) as origo.In Sweden the digits goes from 400 to 999. 0-89 degrees - 400-549 90-179 degrees - 550-699 180-269 degrees - 700-849 270-359 degrees - 850-999And as Eric pointed out there is no reason to make a custom waypoint based on a RNAV-waypoint since these points are already placed as optimum as possible with regards to environment, noise and traffic pattern when creating a STAR or SID.Where I work we actually often clear arriving aircraft's directly to one of these points to set them up more easily for a visual approach instead of giving them the STAR or direct the VOR at the airport. Of course if weather and traffic permits.It's all about cutting corners. I wan't the aircraft's in my airspace for the shortest time possible. :(

We'll try to look at all this stuff for SP2 - no guarantees obviously as always, but this type of functionality is planned for the 777 already and we may be able to back-port it into the NGX FMC. It's not trivial to do though - we have to add a whole bunch of new temporary flight plan stacks in memory and so on to be able to do it - we're hesitant to muck with that stuff as it can be CTD-city if something doesn't get accounted for.