I am so used to all the complicated features of PMDG Payware aircraft, that when I went to use the Posky 777 it felt like a toy. Specifically things got difficult when I had to rely on default ATC to vector me into Heathrow (and we all know what the ATC is like) I never knew what Vertical speed to use on decent since there is no VNAV in the posky 777. So I just had to guess at it. Since all ATC says is descend and maintain 15000 or whatever, I never can plan ahead correctly and be on the correct descent profile. What should I do to make things easier. If I rely on charts ATC will yell at me to get back on course since they dont follow sids and stars.

If ATC tell you to go down to 15,000, and you need to be down there at a specific geographic point, then you can work it out from your ground speed, or even fairly roughly from your airspeed if drift, headwind or tailwind isn't very bad. You could do it all in your head if you are reasonably okay at maths, or on an E6B or use Aerosoft's (payware) Flight Calculator, or even a simple cheap desktop calculator. Two ground aid bearings, taken a minute apart from your old steam nav aids will let you work out drift in any case, if you want more precision. Let's say you are doing 300 knots, a not inconceivable speed for dropping down to 15,000 from perhaps 20,000 or whatever. 300 knots is about 330mph, which means you'll be covering 27.5 miles of ground every five minutes with no drift, so at that speed and 1,000fpm descent rate (which you can dial in on the MCP regardless of having no FMC), you'll take exactly five minutes to get down to 15,000 from 20,000 and you'll know you are twenty-seven and a half miles on from where you started the descent. Round it all up to a rough figure and that gives you a usable rule of thumb of about 30 miles to lose 5,000 feet in roughly five minutes if you are doing about 300 knots, which is an easy one to remember. Thirty seconds with a calculator will let you work any other rough guide out for other speeds or descent rates in a similar fashion for a good old bit of ded reckoning. Alternatively, you could buy the ISG gauges and sling the excellent Smiths FMC you get with that into your aircraft, which is probably a more realistic way of flying that Triple Seven (did that on both my Aerosim and CS Triple Sevens and it works great by the way). Al

I tryed with the Smith FMC and the Isg guages, but with the posky retrofit from the website, it takes away the engine page (so I dont see flaps, N1 percent, autobrakes, etc) also some of the displays arent correctly scaled into the panel. should I skip the retrofit and do all of it manually? Also the FMC doesnt display the aircraft, engine rating. Does all this need to be done manually?

To be honest, the complicated aircraft which I fly (LDS 767) I don't encounter this problem. I have notice however that about 2000 fpm should get you down where ATC directs you. Bob

I am so used to all the complicated features of PMDG Payware aircraft, that when I went to use the Posky 777 it felt like a toy. Specifically things got difficult when I had to rely on default ATC to vector me into Heathrow (and we all know what the ATC is like) I never knew what Vertical speed to use on decent since there is no VNAV in the posky 777. So I just had to guess at it. Since all ATC says is descend and maintain 15000 or whatever, I never can plan ahead correctly and be on the correct descent profile. What should I do to make things easier. If I rely on charts ATC will yell at me to get back on course since they dont follow sids and stars.

FSX ATC is fairly screwed up IMHO. I tried using it with the FMC settings in the PMDG 737 and it had me flying all over the skies even though the FSX flight plan had the exact same waypoints as the ones in the FMC. Finally ATC just shut me down and told me my IFR had been cancelled bla bla bla. So I never use ATC. I might occasionally change the commo settings to match the Center (like Washington Center) I'm located at though and listen to the chatter. FSX ATC will NOT get you down properly in all cases. Sometimes the landing flight path is coming up too fast for the aircraft to get down in time without using a lot of vertical speed. I used XPAX sometime back and my passengers were screaming and yelling about the vertical speed ATC had me on! When you start getting close to the top of descent, you can request a lower altitude from ATC and begin your descent further out. I think you can descend in 2000 ft increments. You can really slow your speed when you know you are getting close to the top of descent. That way you'll be at a much lower speed while descending per ATC's directions. You can also cancel the IFR flight plan and do your descent in accordance with charts or the STAR for the airport. When you get down to a certain altitude, you can simply open up the IFR plan again and click NO when asked if you want to go to the beginning of the flight plan. Once ATC ID's you again, they should start vectoring you in for the proper runway. It's all not very realistic but it the best you can do under the circumstances. If you don't know how to program the FMC, you should take a few moments to try as it is really the most realistic way to fly a PMDG or other commercial airliner. It really is easy and you can almost do it with your eyes shut once you get the hang of it. Most commercial developers have tutorial with their product that gives you step by step instructions. Hope this helps! Best regards,Jim

I used to use the posky and default aircraft all the time before I started to taking fsx seriously. Now with out an aircraft I can start from cold and dark and program the fmc. it really sucks and the smith fmc is nothing like the one from pmdg

The last time I used FSX ATC it asked me to land my Citation on the water runway at Juneau. Never touched it since........G

I would assume the FSX default ATC was designed to work with the FMS-less default airplanes. Like Bob pointed out, when default ATC tells you to descend, setup a 1800 to 2000 descend per minute. That ought to put you at the altitude default ATC wants you to be at the right time. Have fun

IIRC FSX (and previous versions) ATC use default vertical speed line in the aircraft.cfg file to calculate descent/ascent rates. Here are some samples from my CFG files Typical GA cfg line:<default_vertical_speed=700.0 > Typical commercial CFG line:<default_vertical_speed=1800> So if ATC gives a descent/ascent instruction then the cfg line from above will indicate a good descent/ascent rate for the pilot to use that will be aligned with the FS ATC instructions.

IIRC FSX (and previous versions) ATC use default vertical speed line in the aircraft.cfg file to calculate descent/ascent rates. Here are some samples from my CFG files Typical GA cfg line:<default_vertical_speed=700.0 > Typical commercial CFG line:<default_vertical_speed=1800> So if ATC gives a descent/ascent instruction then the cfg line from above will indicate a good descent/ascent rate for the pilot to use that will be aligned with the FS ATC instructions.

I looked in my posky aircraft cfg and cant find the line. where is it next to?

I looked in my posky aircraft cfg and cant find the line. where is it next to?

I just checked two of my CFG files and the line is in the autopilot section.

Nevermind I didnt look close enough. I found it and changed it to 1800