Hi all,

 

I'm currently working toward understanding flight plan training because so far I've focused everything on learning the controls, and spending a lot of time hand flying which I thought would be good prior to letting the AP do it all for me!

 

I've tried codifying everything down into the smallest steps to make things simpler and throughout today (off work!!) I'm going to try and get my head around making my own FP from one of the websites which generate them. I know you can get software to do it automatically but I figure that's a luxury for when I understand how to do it myself, or I'll never get a real understanding of the system in place.

 

First off, am I right in thinking this is effectively the process of inputting a route..

 

1: Position initialisation, tell the aircraft where I am right now.

2: Tell it where I'm coming from and where I'm going (eg EGLL > LEAL)

3: Departure/arrival - tell the FMC which runway I'm using (which will in turn show me which SIDS I can connect to)

4: Use the route screen to fill out the Airway segment (am I envisionining this right, if I were using a GPS in my car, effectively the SID would be the route out of town, the STAR would be the route into the town I'm going to, and the airways segment would be the motorway/highway connecting the two?) - that's what I drew from the tutorial but unsure if I interpreted it correctly!

5: Complete the arrivals page, which involves setting up the STAR prior to landing.

 

This is all I know so far, but is this the basic theory behind what is going on here?

 

Many thanks

Sounds like you've got the fundamentals understood. Make sure you activate and execute the plan when prompted. All you need to do then is complete the PERF INIT and TAKEOFF pages and you're good to go.

I think you have a good understanding so far. Two things that helped me in the beginning. 1. After you input all your ROUTE information for the flight in the FMC, go to the LEGS page and clear any discontinuities. Remember that you don't edit the FMC by adding or subtracting to existing waypoints, you overwrite them. I wish I understood that from the beginning. 2. After you think the flightplan is properly inputted in the FMC, switch the ND to PLAN mode, go to the LEGS page and STEP through each waypoint while looking at the ND to make sure you have a complete and proper flight plan.

 

After that, it's just a matter of performing flight after flight, using different scenarios to learn different functionalities. I still have a lot to learn. Fly the Tutorial #2 by Ryan Maziarz, the tutorial by Tom Rizager, and the tutorial by Tim Metzinger to learn many of the deeper nuances of the FMC. Good Luck

Thanks for your replies :) I will keep at it - I'll be back soon to post more questions no doubt lol.

 

Thanks again.