I am posting this note as I've seen a lot of posts in the past year in many locations about the correct pitch angle for a 747-400. I've seen several folks say 5 degrees is normal and several even comment that 8 degrees is normal.From flying in The Queen for 30 years on many flights around the world, including a fair number of cockpit visits, and based on extensive sim study, I believe that the correct cruise pitch angle is around 2 to 2.5 degrees, exceptionally 3 degrees, and on approach to landing between 1 degree and 2.5 degrees.It's not physically possible to serve meals on the Queen if the pitch is 5 degrees or more. The uphill effort with trolleys and carts is impossible for cabin crew.Another factor to consider is the weight of the ship. You can't cruise at a normal pitch if your weight is too high for the flight level. So, you can't take a fully loaded 747 to FL350 and expect to cruise normally. Your pitch will be way too high and your fuel burn will be huge because your profile presents enormous drag to the relative wind.I've fiddled with the pitch angle of many Queens I've downloaded at AVSIM and flightsim.com because many of them do actually cruise at 4 to 5 degrees which is excessive and they also approach at 4 to 5 degrees which is ditto. I've successfully adjusted the pitch angles by adjusting the Cruise Lift Scalar in the aircraft.cfg file, and I've then adjusted N1 and fuel flow to make things consistent. To do this, I've used freeware manuals that have BOEING data and I come pretty close to book figures with my tweaking. I'd be happy to send anybody a modified cfg file for a 747-400 if they wish to experiment.I hope this helps people looking to make the 747 cruise and approach at a realistic [email protected]

i was going to post a question til i read your post so maybe you can help. i've always had a problem seeing over the panel in any 747 when coming in on final approach. in other words i cannot see the runway. no problem in any other aircraft just the 747s. I've tried different fuel settings, flaps and speeds and still can't see the runway. i do not want to use the shift-enter keys to raise the seat unless real pilots have to do that. now, just because i have tried different flap, speed and fuel settings doesn't mean i did it right on one of those occasions so i am all ears for any suggestions. any advice? thanks, william

Well, if your weight and speed and flaps are right, you normally can more or less see over the glareshield but in general, there's no way you can see the ground or destination runway from about 500 vertical feet as a general rule without doing the shift+enter routine.It might be more OK NOT to be able to see the ground straight ahead from the approach phase if we had real peripheral vision. But in FS, we don't have that--unless you have multi monitors to simulate peripheral vision. Real pilots normally do not have to shift their seats in the 747 cockpit to see the ground. They normally do NOT see the landing point in many jets but it isn't a problem because they have peripheral vision and can also feel the situation very differently because it's real life, not a sim.So, ultimately, you may have to use shift+enter and live with it. I do and have done for years.JS

thanks very much. i understand we don't have much peripheral vision in a sim and can live with that with no problem and having to use the shift/enter keys to raise the seat seems like a good enough alternative even though real pilots might not need to. it also makes it a challenge to not see the runway in a sense, forcing you to really follow the ILS closely. thanks again for your help. william