As I said, you should start your descents earlier.

 

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.
 

 

The 3 to 1 rule is a "rule of thumb" and should be treated as what it is. It needs adjustment depending on the aircraft, the airport you're flying to, the weather, traffic situation etc. You can't just pretend to comply with the 3to1 rule and expect to nail your descents every time, it's not gonna happen in a lot of flights. 10.000ft at 30nm from the airport, on a 737 is too high. I'd like to be 40nm miles out when descending through 10.000.

 

Imagine you're flying at FL350 and your GSIA is 3000'. Using the 3to1 rule you get that you should be starting your descent 96 nm out. Now, you'll have to account for the 250 knot restriction which requires leveling out for some minutes, that's 1 mile every 10 knots, or 5 nm if slowing from 300 to 250. Then you'll wanna be leveled at GSIA at least 5nm before the FAF. That's 106nm already, let's round it up to 120 and that should be your value. 

 

Or, what I do is starting my descents 20nm prior to the calculated T/D position. I've never needed to extend the landing gear, in fact, I rarely have to use the speedbrakes.

 

Remember it's always easier to descent slower than faster. 

 

PS: There's a famous joke going around:

"United 485, expedite descent and reduce to 210 knots"

"Unable to expedite and reduce at the same time, United 485"

"What's the matter United 485? Don't you have speedbrakes?"

"Sure, but those are for MY mistakes, not YOURS!"

Yes that's a good one. Heard this one, "Mexicana 285 you were assigned to cross Alter at 17000"

 

Mexicana comes back, " eh, sometimes we make it and sometimes we don't".

 

Or everyone is holding one day, then Mexicana checks in and is immediately cleared direct the airport.

 

United 485 comes up the freq and asks why Mexicana is cleared right in and we are all holding?

 

ATC comes back and says, "believe me United, you don't want to be up there holding with those guys"

 

Or the time on ground. "Everyone on this freq, hold your current position - Mexicana is moving and we aren't talking to them,"

 

Well, they aren't really jokes.

 

And yes, I'm aware 3 to 1 is a wag.

Is it just me or are you sim guys trying to convince a line pilot he doesn't know how to fly his aircraft?

 

May I ask how much of you have hundreds of hours line experience in a busy airspace?

 

 

I'm with 3mta3 here. Good ole' rubber brakes brake well, in air and on ground. And being nice to the ATC and flexible in their requests makes them remember you and eventually save you time and your airline money.

Once the ATC knows they can squeeze you in sequence and you can make it and get stable, they will squeeze you in. Tell them "sorry, no can do, I will only drop my gear to slow down on final"? Hold it is, for this guy.

 

 

VLO is 270 kts - yet if I put the gear lever down at this speed - nothing happens until 250kts, then gear auto deploys. Nice it respects the flap speed limits - but hey - sometimes I need those rollers for the big old airbrakes that they are!

Fuel Flow reverses when engines are in reverse - yep - you can make fuel going into reverse. I haven't actually noticed if fuel comes back into the tank - but the FF numbers on engine instruments sure go negative.

Manual pressurization - go ahead and close the outflow valve manually, with doors closed and a bleed source cabin should pressurize, in fact mx sometimes does this on the ground to check the pressurization system - however when I tried it - no luck.

I also seem to remember to have seen a problem on the PROG pages - if you hit previous page it cycles through other FMC pages - it doesn't go from PROG 4 to 1 like it should.

Trim doesn't move to Full nose down with the flaps up. When you extend the flaps trim moves all the way to full nose down - but with flaps up - trim stops at the green band limit - if I remember correctly.

I guess I will put all of this in the log and call mx control

 

"MX Control" can be found at support.precisionmanuals.com

 

Help ensure it gets fixed - submit a ticket.

Here are a few things I've noticed about the NGX, anyone have any comments?

 

VLO is 270 kts - yet if I put the gear lever down at this speed - nothing happens until 250kts, then gear auto deploys.  Nice it respects the flap speed limits - but hey - sometimes I need those rollers for the big old airbrakes that they are!

 

Fuel Flow reverses when engines are in reverse - yep - you can make fuel going into reverse.  I haven't actually noticed if fuel comes back into the tank - but the FF numbers on engine instruments sure go negative.

 

Manual pressurization - go ahead and close the outflow valve manually, with doors closed and a bleed source cabin should pressurize, in fact mx sometimes does this on the ground to check the pressurization system - however when I tried it - no luck.

 

I also seem to remember to have seen a problem on the PROG pages - if you hit previous page it cycles through other FMC pages - it doesn't go from PROG 4 to 1 like it should.

 

Trim doesn't move to Full nose down with the flaps up.  When you extend the flaps trim moves all the way to full nose down - but with flaps up - trim stops at the green band limit - if I remember correctly.

 

I guess I will put all of this in the log and call mx control ^_^

What you are describing with the trim is normal operation for the 737. The Main Electric Trim authority with flaps extended is 0.05 to 14.5 units. With the flaps up it is 3.95 to 14.5 units.

 

Is it just me or are you sim guys trying to convince a line pilot he doesn't know how to fly his aircraft?

 

Is 3mta3 a real world 737 pilot?

Thanks Ralgh and scandinavian - that was the feedback I was looking for.  I will submit tickets on all except the trim, as I couldn't remember if that was actual aircraft behavior or not. 

 

And yes I have flown the actual jet, 737-300,-400,-500 and -700, approx 3000 hours -  but it has been a while, so my memory is a little rusty on some things.

 

J Rock

I've had a talk with Ryan about landing gear. He told that this bug is caused by FSX and suggested to uncheck "aircraft stress causes damage" box in FSX as will allow to extend gear at 270kt.

Then I concur with Fabo. How can sim pilots possibly criticise a real world 737 pilot with respect to flying the NGX?

 

 

How can sim pilots possibly criticise a real world 737 pilot with respect to flying the NGX?

 

While this is not the case here, just because someone flies the plane doesn't mean they know everything about it.  Granted, there's a lot of training that they receive, but I have friends who fly the same types and you can definitely tell one of them paid a lot more attention in class than the other.

 

To some, it's just a job; to others, it's a passion.

I'm with 3mta3 on his points. He sounds like he's flown the real plane.

In the 737s and the 777s you can't use the gear to slow down. Both planes are made to maintain the speed. That means if you're at ~200kts and you want to use the gear to slow down to ~180-190kts it doesn't work because the engines will spool up to maintain your 200kts.

 

 

Well if 200 knots is in the MCP window then yeah, it's going to add the applicable power to maintain that. But if you have 170 selected and IAS is still indicating 200 - dropping the gear is a massive help in hand. I had this yesterday going into LAX in the 77F with a 15 knot tailwind on the glide path, all the way to 1200 feet. 200 knots, flap 15 and speedbrakes fully extended - only way I got speed back to 170 was with the gear. 

Interesting - I have never had to use the gear to slow the NGX, just the usual speedbrake to flight detent when requested by the FMS - which is pretty standard for all aircraft these days. very rare to see a modern airliner not use the SB on descent for at least a portion.

 

Saying that - using the gear is a perfectly valid way of slowing an aircraft on descent/approach under less than favourable circumstances, and yes we do it in the P-3 Orion is if looks like we are a little high/fast for one reason or another with no problems at all. It is a little amusing however seeing some of the reponses from the 'professional sim pilots' who think that using the gear is 'not correct, cheating,wrong' etc. ^_^

 

A point to note - I see in the post above EGLL had to use the gear to slow down, be careful that you don't chuck out flap too soon on approach....this will NOT help you slow down and stay on profile easier, you may notice the aircraft will actually attempt to slow to the applicable flap speed by raising the nose, and from there you will be asked for Drag Required etc etc. Better to ensure you are slowing on profile and look good before hamstringing yourself with flap too early. 

 

So your example is yes you must make sure the MCP speed is correct (it should be following the FMS profile anyway correct?) - so at most you should only need flight detent speedbrake maybe a little up to the point the engine spools up to maintain speed (at which point pull in the SB) and start feeding out flap.

 

Also - just a query, why would you have a 15kt tailwind on finals may I ask? My approach may not work in this case....I wouldn't know as I am pretty old school and try to land into the wind, not with it

 

 

While this is not the case here, just because someone flies the plane doesn't mean they know everything about it.  Granted, there's a lot of training that they receive, but I have friends who fly the same types and you can definitely tell one of them paid a lot more attention in class than the other.

 

I agree with you on this point, and I have since long been able to pick a point here and there with pilot friends (chief of type even), but that were small things mostly that were not in use at this or that airline...

But here it is not whether the circle thing in top right part of the PFD is AoA or RadAlt indicator, we got guys here without any operational knowledge trying to tell a pilot that the finer points of speed control in busy airspace he does are plain wrong.

The main reason why I won't let this kind of thing go is that this is what gives simmers a bad name within general pilot public, along with some other points - one of them that you mention often, that in aviation things are not black and white, SOPs differ..

It's just that I met one too many pilots who genuinely believed - and not without a reason - that simmers are "self-important ######s, who think they know your job better than you, because they play a videogame" (paraphrasing a bit, but I suppose many of you have met with a similar testament)

 

 

 

 

A point to note - I see in the post above EGLL had to use the gear to slow down, be careful that you don't chuck out flap too soon on approach....this will NOT help you slow down and stay on profile easier, you may notice the aircraft will actually attempt to slow to the applicable flap speed by raising the nose, and from there you will be asked for Drag Required etc etc. Better to ensure you are slowing on profile and look good before hamstringing yourself with flap too early. 

 

I've had success with using Flaps 1 position, slats do create some extra drag. Going further does not help.

 

 

 

Also - just a query, why would you have a 15kt tailwind on finals may I ask? My approach may not work in this case....I wouldn't know as I am pretty old school and try to land into the wind, not with it

 

There are places where you would end up with tailwind down to some 300ft AAL, just for wind to die down or even turn around under that...

At what height do you aim to be fully configured? 1.200 ft AGL, F15, 200 kts IAS and no L/G yet?