Things I've noticed with the NGX

[WestAir 2,522]

Kyle,

 

You make some pretty valid points here, and in fact I'm going to concede that you've swayed my opinion. There are a lot of pilots in real world that make you feel uncomfortable in the airspace, but It's never as bizzare as in VATSIM; "Can anyone please give me ILS freq. I need to land."

 

You mentioned my signature - I haven't updated it since 2010. I'm @ 500 hours with a few more ratings. With regards to the incident in question, I was doing practice GPS approaches in January at KVGT (North Las Vegas). Nellis AFB handles those, so we often switch between the two towers. Nellis asked me to fly towards the IAF (SAYQO) and we were given a heading and altitude. Long story short, they had us flying at the rocks west of SAYQO for quite some time. In their defense the channel was very, very busy.

 

Good points, though.

[atrdriver 7]

The way I do plan descents to airports with no vertical STAR, is 30nm at 10000/250kts.

 

Some may recognize this as the 3 to 1 rule.

 

Anyway I always back up my descent planning with a 3 to 1 computation . You will find that the FMC is aggressive. It would rather default to adding drag than adding thrust. Which of course is the most cost effective solution.

 

The spoilers are more effective in the NGX sim than in the jet. Believe me, with the longer wing of the NG vs classic, your first few approaches are scrambles to get down. Hence you reach for the gear which can be deployed at 270 kts, vs the spoilers which aren't all that effective and rumble quite a bit.

 

A heavy 73 at idle 250kts will barely crack 1000fpm in descent, you may get another 150fpm with spoilers. Now you find yourself getting behind the profile and are given a 210 kt restriction by ATC.

 

Guess what, if you don't act quickly you are going to be way high. What do most do? Grab the gear handle.

 

A recent 737 fleet newsletter stated "We all agree that dropping the gear makes a great “speed brake” at times, just make sure the speed is below 270 knots.

I just wanted to say that 3mta3 is "spot on" in his narrative above. I wouldn't be at all surprised if we fly the NG for the same company! It is my company's POLICY to use the landing gear for drag when necessary, namely in the terminal area where most folks normally use spoilers or flaps for drag. The spoilers really aren't all that effective in the real jet. I recently had a controller give me a vector to a base leg much sooner than I expected while descending through 5000ft. As the pilot flying, my response for the captain was "gear down." Captain's response to me? "Attaboy!" Putting the gear down at 5000ft on a visual approach just doesn't feel right, but that's the way the company wants you to fly THEIR jet! Without that gear hanging out very early on, I never would have gotten configured and stabilized by 1000ft on this approach. The NGX doesn't accurately simulate just how slippery the real jet is during descent! I'm still fairly new to the type with only 240 hours in it, but I'm getting much more comfortable with getting her down in a timely fashion!

[victorlima01 4]

Hi,

 

If you keep having to bleed off speed and use the gear to do so, then it coesn't sound like you are managing the plane very well.  In all the years I have been simming I hardly ever have "Drag Required" coming up.  The limitations are there for a purpose, so that you do not over stress the aircraft and thus safety is the name of the game.

 

Rob

 

Hi Rob. This is not what I have seen in the rw. Every single NG driver I´ve known jokes that their plane doesn´t have spoilers installed and complains that they´d be better of calculating descents with a TI calculator rather than the FMC, even when dispatch is spot on with the forecasts. I know a lot of guys who elect to do a lot of descents with LVL CHG rather than Vnav because of these shortcomings. DRAG REQUIRED is a constant in this plane. As a matter of fact, where I live some of the STARs are pretty unforgiving and call for high speed/steep descents, which in the Ng translates to high drag approaches. So it is not uncommon (BTW it´s stated in comapny SOP) that pilots should lower the landing gear well before expected to help manage speed during these descents. I´ve had the privilege to witness said approaches from the jumpseat in both 737s and 77s and I can attest that their behavior is very different!

[scandinavian13 5,192]

 

 

You mentioned my signature - I haven't updated it since 2010. I'm @ 500 hours with a few more ratings.

 

Nice!  Well done!  I'm still working my way up.  I've been joking lately that I'll probably get my IR and CPL at about the same time since I've been screwing around for so long (I mean that in the "aimless" sense to say I've just been burning holes in the sky without working towards ratings/licenses more often than I should be - haha).

 

 

 

With regards to the incident in question, I was doing practice GPS approaches in January at KVGT (North Las Vegas). Nellis AFB handles those, so we often switch between the two towers. Nellis asked me to fly towards the IAF (SAYQO) and we were given a heading and altitude. Long story short, they had us flying at the rocks west of SAYQO for quite some time. In their defense the channel was very, very busy.

 

Gotcha.  If you were VFR, practice approaches can get dicey, since they're basically a form of super-flight-following.  They make it a point to remind you about every other transmission that you're VFR to emphasize that point, though (something that gets rather old rather quickly when I go up with my friends to help them keep currency) - haha.  IFR practice approaches should be different, but as you said, they were busy, and even all IFR traffic can be tough to manage - busy is busy.  They should've opened another position to cut the radio chatter and controller work load, but I'm not familiar with the facilities out there, particularly military ones (never really worked with them directly in my contracting - just civ side - and the closest facility we worked with to LAS was SoCal TRACON).

 

 

 

Either way, I'm glad you were able to see the essence of my post, instead of just seeing it for the bluntness that tends to be almost overly present.  Thanks for that!

[WestAir 2,522]

Kyle,

 

Bluntness is often the best way to drive a point. Sometimes people tend to post all of their thoughts into one post and you end up drowning in a sea of opinions. I appreciate the straight-to-the-point posts. I looked for the little "+1 reputation" thing next to your post but didn't find it. I guess AVSIM got rid of it.