Aircraft too high on a VNAV descent

[Ray Proudfoot 8,964]

Russell, I don’t have the cyan marker enabled. I’ll do that tomorrow. Maybe it was just a coincidence but moving the Saiteks to idle kept the altitude indicator on the ND spot on. On a second flight it also worked so seems a sensible thing to do.

If I want to disengage the A/P I click on the bar on the MCP. I can see how you may have misunderstood what I said and I reacted in a less than ideal way.

All water under the bridge. 😉

[sloppysmusic 253]

33 minutes ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

Russell, I don’t have the cyan marker enabled.

Ah yes it's very useful for when you DO turn the A/T off to keep yours at same setting as the planes. Otherwise when you move there will be a sudden lurch or fall off of throttle. Excellent setting to turn on!

33 minutes ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

If I want to disengage the A/P I click on the bar on the MCP

Actually..no! Not ideally...That's the place you click if you want immediate control of the plane, pitch. roll and throttle all at once like maybe a terrain avoidance maneuverer. There are 2 buttons I highly recommend to map to your personal hardware asap to get the best experience.

On the throttles in plane (ambidextrous both sides of handles) there is the A/T cut off.

On the yoke there is the A/P cut off. 

(Both of these buttons work in the NGX as they are supposed to and you can actually click them with the mouse but it's not very convenient when on final!)

Normal procedure is to press each button twice, the first time disconnects the second press shuts off the alarm that sounds. Once you have disconnected to reconnect you would either turn A/T back on on MCP or press a CMD or CWS button. That big bar you mentioned is more of a fail safe than a control you would use in normal flight. The settings and behavior for those buttons can be found in the CDU settings . There are way better explanations of how to do this than what I could write here, but you will enjoy approaches much more when you have these 2 buttons mapped to control landings with AT and AP off. 

If you watch YouTube videos from the cockpit just before landing you will hear an alarm buzzer go off then a second or so later be silenced. That is the pilot or first officer (whoever is in command) pressing one of the disconnect buttons first for the disconnect then second for the alarm. About 1 second between presses (also a setting in CDU).

Phew! Sorry about all that but that info totally changed my relationship to the AP and AT and when to disconnect. 

33 minutes ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

All water under the bridge

Absolutely! 😄 To the pursuit of knowledge!

Edited February 1, 2019 by sloppysmusic

[Ray Proudfoot 8,964]

Russell,

I'm aware switching the A/P bar off is not correct procedure but it's by far the quickest method to retain control. I will look into programming buttons for the A/T and A/P disconnect in the longer term. I like to have complete control for landings rather than rely on auto thingies.

I used to do the same with Concorde where the auto-throttles were only disconnected at 15ft. It's a sim. I will always be able to walk away should it go wrong but it's the side of simming I most enjoy.

[sloppysmusic 253]

9 hours ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

Russell,

I'm aware switching the A/P bar off is not correct procedure but it's by far the quickest method to retain control. I will look into programming buttons for the A/T and A/P disconnect in the longer term. I like to have complete control for landings rather than rely on auto thingies.

I used to do the same with Concorde where the auto-throttles were only disconnected at 15ft. It's a sim. I will always be able to walk away should it go wrong but it's the side of simming I most enjoy.

I agree about manual landings being the best part of the sim as they are for me too. It kind of annoys me when people say 'well correct procedure is.... Blah blah'. I KNOW what correct procedure is but I also want to fly the plane and make it do what I want plus in real life pilots are encouraged to take over manually on approach for practice so the one day when they HAVE to go manual due to a major malfunction they have the skills and muscle memory to cope. You're right it's a sim and we should each enjoy it the way we want to! 

In the CDU options key commands section there are a whole lot of assignable short cut keys for all kinds of useful functions if you haven't already found it. Lots for the autopilot so you can make the plane done at you want easily. 

Edited February 2, 2019 by sloppysmusic

[Ray Proudfoot 8,964]

Two good flights today and I even ran Radar Contact 4 for a bit more realism. All was good including the manual landings.

I'll take a look at the key commands, thanks for the tip. 👍

[sloppysmusic 253]

On 2/2/2019 at 3:32 PM, Ray Proudfoot said:

Two good flights today and I even ran Radar Contact 4 for a bit more realism. All was good including the manual landings.

I'll take a look at the key commands, thanks for the tip. 👍

RC4? Is that the one that's free now or donation ware? I need an ATC add on that doesn't need me to do much work with other than maybe install new voices. Ahh I guess that's off topic but you got me interested now! 

🙂

[Ray Proudfoot 8,964]

12 minutes ago, sloppysmusic said:

RC4? Is that the one that's free now or donation ware? I need an ATC add on that doesn't need me to do much work with other than maybe install new voices. Ahh I guess that's off topic but you got me interested now! 

🙂

Free. I was on the development team as a tester and supplier of a voice set so you can listen to my dulcet tones.

Very simple to use. Best on a WideFS setup as volume can be adjustable and ShowText provides the menu instead of spoiling your view.

Load Flight plan, enter departure gate, arrival gate, flight number, call sign and you're ready to go.

[sloppysmusic 253]

Brilliant thanks I was just checking out the forums. I use 2 monitors, front one for the sim and left side one for charts, maps etc. So I can just put the atc on that? Same pc of course. Promise this will be my last OT comment! 

[Ray Proudfoot 8,964]

You can put ShowText on a separate monitor I think. Nicer interface than simconnect.

[Spin737 102]

Just to clarify a few things:

This issue was caused by enginges not being at idle.

LVL CHG (not FLCH or FL CHG) will not magically increase your descent performance. It may, however, cause you a violation for busting an altitude restriction that VNAV would have honored.

Don't use the bar to disengage the autopilot.