Am I correct in assuming that if the FMC thinks I cannot make the altitude, it will not initiate the decent?

 

No. It will initiate a descent only if the MCP altitude is lower than the current altitude and it passed the T/D. It will not automatically lower the MCP altitude - ever.

Thanks for all the help mate. Cheers!

http://onlineflightplanner.org/ creates any flightplan using selected Airac and save to ALL aircraft formats and FSX/P3D .pln. Shows plan on map. And it's free!

When speaking about FMC flight plans I keep on seeing speaking about the most famous airports in the world, so far so good.

 

Problems may surface when you insert data into the FMC about airports not so known and I do not speak about tiny africans ones but just some capitol city in Europe or South America therefore not Paris or Buenos Aires but something like Milano Linate ( LIML ) or Montevideo Carrasco ( SUMU ) .

 

After enetring the proper route and SID & STARS the FMC sometimes goes crazy and starts to draw lines just a kitty playing with a ball of whool. That may requires HOURS from the users to fix it manually, actually that's the most frustrating part of the 777 and also 737NG.

 

Of course not all the 20k FSX airports can be covered but I would be happy if at least the world capitol cities would.Of course the latest AIRAC is always applied.

 

..and yes, on major airports everything works fine for me so it is not me doing mistakes but the FMC sometimes, even if entering the proper SIDs and above all STARs, the FMC draws crazy lines you can't even imagine to fly but you have to delete points manually into the FMC to correct the FMC huge macro errors clearly visible switching to flight plan and enlarging the view.

 

Why that ? I suspect testers and the vast majority of users only fly EGLL, KLAS, LFPG, KJFK etc.. etc..

 

Problems may surface when you insert data into the FMC about airports not so known and I do not speak about tiny africans ones but just some capitol city in Europe or South America therefore not Paris or Buenos Aires but something like Milano Linate ( LIML ) or Montevideo Carrasco ( SUMU ) .

 

After enetring the proper route and SID & STARS the FMC sometimes goes crazy and starts to draw lines just a kitty playing with a ball of whool. That may requires HOURS from the users to fix it manually, actually that's the most frustrating part of the 777 and also 737NG.

 

Of course not all the 20k FSX airports can be covered but I would be happy if at least the world capitol cities would.Of course the latest AIRAC is always applied.

 

..and yes, on major airports everything works fine for me so it is not me doing mistakes but the FMC sometimes, even if entering the proper SIDs and above all STARs, the FMC draws crazy lines you can't even imagine to fly but you have to delete points manually into the FMC to correct the FMC huge macro errors clearly visible switching to flight plan and enlarging the view.

 

Why that ? I suspect testers and the vast majority of users only fly EGLL, KLAS, LFPG, KJFK etc.. etc..

 

I can't say I've ever seen this and I've flown in to smaller airports including some Italian airports. Do you have a picture to show this? The only time I've seen the route showing crazy waypoints is if I've used the wrong STAR or wrong transition. I flew in to LIMC, which has double the amount of passengers as LIML (but much smaller then LIRF), but it's not huge and I had no problems flying in to there.

I have no handy pictures now, I do not use FSX since 2 months but I'll be back soon. I was just surfing the  general forum and I saw a topic which I felt intriguing for me.

 

Told that, your experience is good but how do you explain the fact that on major airports I never experience any issues with the FMC drawing the flight plan and, let's say 75% of times, I have problems on smaller aiports with the FMC ? 

 

I use the most recent charts and the most recent airac. I choose a SID or STAR from the maps and decide to fly that inserting it into the FMC just like I successfully do with major airports. I take no consideration about the wind therefore the FSX ATC.

 

After selecting a runway and a proper SID for that very specific runway, the FMC draws a freak flower pattern, just like old harpoon missiles setup option  :o  ^_^

 

Same speech with STARS, sometimes the FMC connect the fixes of a certain STARS to the landing runway with draws which cross the runway itself multiple times before....before I do not know because they are so intricate that it is impossible to understand the " logic " behind the error and therefore to prevent it or correct it.

 

I am therefore obliged to manually add and delete stuff into the FMC to restore the proper SID and STARS pattern. This task is heavily time consuming and that's really frustrating, as you can imagine.

 

If I do the same stuff on major european airports my 737NGX or my 777 fly the route like a charm, for example on Fly Tampa Vienna, on Aerosoft Charles DeGaulle, on Aerosoft Zurich etc...

 

Cheers

This is not an error for everyone, this sounds specific to you. I will try and fly in to LIML and see if I get the same result as you. But I've never had this, and I've flown in to smaller airports across Europe. In fact I've not flown outside of Europe yet

Could this be the ALTERNATE / DIVERT field he is talking about? Those flight paths will show up on the FMC. Just a thought.

Well, I don't think so because I never enter an ATERNATE airport into the FMC. Why ? Because the FMC calculation problems in certain airports drains all of my time that I can't really think about fiddling also with alternate airports.

If you can upload a picture, we can look. But honestly, I've never seen this problem

I'll manage to post a picture as soon as I'll play FSX again, I guess within few days or a week.

 

Thanks

I will try and fly in to LIML and see if I get the same result as you.

Have you done this and if you did what were the results?

I checked and all looked good to me. Typical STAR legs. I didn't cross-check with the charts but it looked normal, a few entries on the legs page and looked about right

Problems may surface when you insert data into the FMC about airports not so known and I do not speak about tiny africans ones but just some capitol city in Europe or South America therefore not Paris or Buenos Aires but something like Milano Linate ( LIML ) or Montevideo Carrasco ( SUMU ) .

I agree with Chris Hanes. I have not seen this at any airports no matter the size whether in the U.S., Europe, South American or Asia. Your ND problems are probably caused by operator error by using incorrect STARS and/or transitions for the runways your are landing on.

 

Consider this situation. On a VHHH-KLAX fight I decide to add an additional 3 miles to the ILS 25L approach. Extend the centerline by 3 miles. Simple. I have done it hundreds of times. the 25L runway heading is 251 degrees. I added the PBD fix into the FMC in the correct place and closed the disco. The only problem was the first and second fix didn’t come with the third fix. So now I had a disco between 2 and 3. I figured by the time I got to the disco I would have intercepted the localizer. So it really made no difference. At the end of a twelve hour flight I don’t want to screw around with vectors. Why not connect the STAR to the Approach. So I added another PBD and attempted to close the disco. It wouldn’t close. I had a real mess now. The ND had two routes on it. When I get to KLAX I will find out which one it flys. After about 10 minutes I decided the whole descent and approach was wrong. So I selected the STAR and Approach again. Entered the two PBD again. Executed and the ND was a bigger mess than the first one. I had three PBD fixes/waypoints on the ND even though the FMC route showed only two. So I did the selection for a third time. Now I still had two routes but one of them went completely off the ND to the south of the airport. I had a real mess now. Then I spotted the problem. The first PBD was entered as GAATE271/3. It should have been enter as GAATE071/3. I was putting it three mile after GAATE when it should have been three mile before GAATE.The first PBD should have been at the end of the approach. In the FMC it was but on the ND it was showing up between the second and third waypoint. Correct the entry and route fill into place. This is an example of operator error involving one heading mistake that turned into a real mess. Something like this is happening at the smaller airports you are talking about.

 

This error I made last night sounds like a insignificant mistake but nothing is insignificant when it comes to entering navagational data into the FMC.