Good day all! Before I get to topic title, let me first explain what I have gooing on. I have followed and completed the Tutorial by the numbers and successfully completed the flight several times. When I venture outside of the Tutorial flight and try to use the same procedures except with a different flightplan, still following the steps though, I seem to run into problems. First off, my EGT Temp always exceeds max and I get a MAST CAUTION about the overheating; Secondly my Air Packs and whole A/C unit shutdown (which I believe causes the EGT temp spike); and lastly and more concerning is that I am unable to maintain a constant climb rate up to my CRZ ALT. The Rate of Climb "bounces" up and down but never passes 500'/min. It takes forever to reach CRZ ALT, and most of the time when I do I have to start an immediate and much steep descent/dive to get on VNAV path. I have no idea why this is happen, only to think that it could be a FLEX setting issue. I have not set the FLEX on many of the flights bc I dont know exactly what setting to put in there. However I have entered the same FLEX setting as in the tutorial and encountered the same issue. So my question is two-fold; First, what is causing the plane to not stay on VNAV profile and have such problems maintaining speed and Rate of climb; Secondly, where can I go to get a good FLEX calculation?

 

BTW the FMC initialization is done step by step with the Tutorial, only replacing the To/From airport info with the one I am flying at that moment.

 

Thank you in advance for any help!

First off, my EGT Temp always exceeds max and I get a MAST CAUTION about the overheating

 

How are you setting TO thrust? Press the AUTOFLIGHT button before takeoff to arm the autothrottle. Also make sure that your external throttle is calibrated correctly.

 

Secondly my Air Packs and whole A/C unit shutdown (which I believe causes the EGT temp spike)

 

That is normal. The MD-11 will automatically shut off the air system for takeoff if it is set on the TO page of the FMS. You can also do it manually if the ECS system is in MANUAL mode. Nothing to do with EGT.

 

The Rate of Climb "bounces" up and down but never passes 500'/min

 

Is your FMS correctly set up with the right numbers? Also make sure that your yoke, joystick, controller is calibrated correctly.

 

I have not set the FLEX on many of the flights bc I dont know exactly what setting to put in there

 

The FLEX temp is the only way to reduce the takeoff thrust. This number is between the OAT and 70 degrees C if I remember correctly. To calculate this number takes data that is not available to anyone except Boeing, MD-11 users and their engineering departments. I would suggest the program TOPCAT to calculate this number, runway distances, stopping distances and more.