I have a question. Will the 777 have Fly By Wire?

 

No.

 

You will get a megaphone, and a team of elves. You will be able to use the megaphone to yell commands at the elves telling them which panels to move.......

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Of course it will have FBW

Future patch to import from PFPX?

 

I have a feeling PFPX would just export in PMDG format. From there, it's just the same as using a COROUTE.

 

Incidentally, what's RF?

 

Radius-to-fix - it's used for arc legs.

Radius-to-fix - it's used for arc legs.

 

Many thanks. I know about radius to fix, but I couldn't place the acronym without context. There are so many!

Many thanks. I know about radius to fix, but I couldn't place the acronym without context. There are so many!

 

Welcome. Yeah, aviation sure has a bunch of them.

I was thinking something along the lines of Hoppie's ACARS(http://www.hoppie.nl/acars/) to be added for VATSIM for the ACARS system, and the "ACARS style" Flightplan / Wind uplink could be used with or without VATSIM. Hoppie's ACARS can be used with TOPCATSIM's TOPCAT program and maybe even the PFPX one also (unknown by me).

 

I don't know how the datalink flight plan loading thing would work guys - where would the "dispatcher" sending you your flight plans be?

 

 

 

As a dispatcher working for a regional airline in the USA; let me share with you some perspective on how it works in the "real world". Disclaimer: Each airline's procedures are different and airlines do have the ability to send the flight plan via ACARS to the aircraft, so the pilot simply has to input the route code and the route appears in the FMC. I will not speak to my airline's procedures, but give a more general description of how this goes...

 

We generate a flight release. The release (with the associated weather package) goes to the departure station where it is printed. Those carriers who have the capability to download a flight plan to the FMS (which is what we are talking about here) would have a route code on the release in which the data for the FMC is located. Simultaneously, the flight plan is filed with ATC. The pilot, if they accept the route, then simply enters the route in the FMC and it comes up for him/her. Otherwise, the pilot inputs the waypoints themselves.

 

Shorter flight stages that don't take a lot of time to enter in the FMC....are generally hand entered as the cost of ACARS for this purpose would outweigh the pilot time cost of hand entering the route data (trust me, it doesn't take a long time). The longer flights are the ones in which ACARS ability to download data to the FMC direct saves considerable time.

 

In the sim world...Ryan's question is a valid one. If you want a data link to "download" a flight plan, two things have to happen. One, there has to be a datalink capability (which currently does exist) and two, a dispatch ability to generate it (which does not). The Hoppie website is the only solution that 'talks' between any computer and a sim aircraft (server and client have to be installed). However, I don't see this as being a really viable option since 1- it would have to be formatted for the FMC and 2- the file itself would have to be transmitted and from what I know of the Hoppie website, only text can be downloaded.

 

An alternative would be having preloaded flight plans. The question becomes which route are you going to select. In the USA, we have a preferred route database, but it does not cover every route sector in the USA. This then delves into my realm in which we don't necessarily use a "preferred" route every day. If you are going to use real time weather, you need to use a flightplan which is going to be reasonably valid for the time frame you select. There are numerous ways to get this information; however, if you go to flightaware.com...there is an ability to search current RW flight plans becased on KICAO origin/destination. This would probably be the fastest way for a non-dispatcher to get a route that is more likely than not going to be correct for the time you are in the air. Note that flightaware.com is not always updated, so you still have to perform a due diligence to determine if the route is viable for your situation.

 

Once PFPX is out (a program to which I am very much looking forward), we should be able to build customizable routes that can be easily exported into a file type that can be loaded into your FMC. I believe that this will be as close as we can reasonably get to having the ability to "upload" flightplans into an FMC. FSBuild has that capability now, but it is pretty limited. FSBuild also maintains the USA preferred route database, so when you build a route in FSBuild, if there is a PF there, you will most likely get it.

 

I don't believe a datalink solution makes sense. In my view, the time and money it would require to build the infrastructure to make this work would not be cost effective for the sim market. The Hoppie server would not likely be able to hold the volume of communication and since it is the only current solution out there, you have to get them to seriously upsize their infrastructure...and that will require money and the desire on their part to actually want to do it. It would be a huge undertaking.

 

As long as we have the capability to download a file from a flight planning program that can be "uploaded" to the PMDG FMC or "translate" a file into the FMC format and give it a route code (which does exist today) then I believe this is the better way forward. You hit the "send" or what ever button that generates your release and it appears in the appropriate file in FSX for you to pull up in the FMC. For short flights, hand enter the data. Real pilots do it, we should be able to do the same. BTW, wind data at altitude still has to be entered by the pilot BY HAND, as this is not something that real world FMCs have the capability to upload. Only the route can be uploaded with the project "OVER" times based on wheels up. I'm pretty sure the PMDG FMC is the only one that really can simulate this properly.

 

Now...IF you want to consider interfacing a datalink into the 777 (and 747 for that matter), a good reason to do it would be to introduce CPDLC to the sim world. That would need to be coordinated with VATSIM or IVAO. It would replace voice comm for position reports and requests on long flights and might - just might - open the possibility of better management of large expanses of -nothing- where current ATC coverage is NIL. Just a thought, but again, this would require a lot of infrastructure change and the willingness of VATSIM/IVAO to consider introducing CPDLC. This is no easy thing.

 

As PFPX comes out, I'll be talking a bit more about dispatch in the sim world, but until I see the product? Not much I can say.

 

Dispatch is AS important as flying the airplane and since dispatch shares operational control of the flight with the PIC (in the USA or anywhere in the world for a US flagged airline); it is a critical subject...and one that is not discussed very much in the sim world. If we have that conversation, then we are going to really start talking about getting "as close as it gets" to real world. With the PMDG products and PFPX, we are going to get a lot closer.

 

Kind regards,

David L. Lamb

FAA Licensed Aircraft Dispatcher

Captain, BA Virtual (BAW141)

David,

Many thanks for your very logical and well argued piece. I think that should provide a clear answer to any questions that may arise.

Hi,

 

I'm taking advantages of that to topic to ask a question regarding FMC options. Maybe I missed it in other topics...

Will there be an option to import the winds aloft for all the waypoints at once from a 3rd party tool like active sky or else?

Would it be great as otherwise it would really tedious to do it manually for each waypoint on long hauls...!

Would it be great as otherwise it would really tedious to do it manually for each waypoint on long hauls...!

 

You don't do it for every waypoint on long haul. Dispatch tells you the waypoints you need to enter them on via the OFP. If you're looking at PFPX, it looks as if it has that feature!