FMS Anxiety

[spilok 1,136]

OK....I admit it!  I've been simming for decades. I love P3d and I fly every single day.  However, I still do not use FMS systems.  I am embarrassed about that, and I really want to learn to use them, because I cannot use many planes that I'd like to use (PMDG, etc.).

I cannot find the correct tutorial that makes me want to learn.  I've brought this up on this forum in the past, but, alas, I still have not solved my personal problem. BTW, I am highly educated, with 2 Master's degrees, and I'm not adverse to learning. 

I would love to find the best tutorial that would really teach me to do a flight successfully.  I have checked YouTube and other sites but I have not found the right tutorial that makes me want to learn the FMS system.  I know Airbus and Boeing are different, but I would like some advice from my fellow simmers.  Now that I'm self-quarantining at home since I just returned from Europe, I certainly have the time every day to tackle this personal problem of mine.  I look forward to my first successful flight using an FMS system.

Stan

Thanks.

[Adrian123 1,015]

Pick it up and use them. Practice practice will make perfect. You seem a very intelligent person. Most aircraft that have FMS's or MCDU's have very good tutorials included with the aircraft. Once mastered, it's a very rewarding experience. Amazing devices.

 

Edited March 15, 2020 by Adrian123

[Chock 17,769]

Easy. Just get hold of one (or several) of these books, or the digital download PDF versions if you prefer, but the printed ring-bound ones are better...

https://utem.com/

If I had to make a recommendation, I'd say get the iFly B737 add-on for your sim:

http://www.flight1.com/products.asp?product=iflyp3d

and then, since the B737 NG is pretty much the ideal FMC-equipped airliner to learn on, get this book to go with it:

https://www.utem.com/shop/index.php?l=product_detail&p=4

That book will really ease you into the subject and make you want to learn it, and pretty soon you'll realise that it's not as complicated as it appears at first glance. 

The thing to bear in mind with the FMC (Flight Management Computer) in an airliner, is that NASA developed the CDU (Computer Display Unit - i.e. the bit you type stuff into) when pocket calculators were starting to become widely available, and so in order to make the CDU not seem scary to professional pilots, they modeled its appearance on the appearance of a pocket calculator. If you'd never seen a pocket calculator before, that would look pretty scary and complicated, even though you of course know that it is not. Same thing with an FMC. It looks complicated, but it is actually really rather simple once you understand how it functions and realise why it looks the way it does, and the above book will make that a painless, fun and easy learning experience.

Edited March 15, 2020 by Chock

[regis9 4,014]

Hi Stan, it’s all about flows.  Once you do them enough times it turns into muscle memory and you start to understand why you do one thing followed by the next, then the next, etc rather than just randomly jumping around various FMS/MCDU pages.

Boeing and Airbus are fairly different, I’d suggest picking one and using it repetitively.  If you do that and let us know which one, it will be easier to direct you to some aircraft-specific tutorials.  
 

Neither Airbus or Boeing’s are really any more difficult than the other in this respect so pick the aircraft you want and go from there.

Edited March 15, 2020 by regis9

[Nyxx 6,993]

I would start with the PMDG NG, the FMC in Boeing’s are more user friendly imo. The MCDU as airbus call them are just as easy but different.

There is nothing to fear so just enjoy the learning and the reward you will feel for doing so.

Imo don’t read about them, it can overwhelming you before you even start.

Watch YouTube on it, search PMDG FMC or pre flight tutorials. It’s so much easier to take in and your not reading about option you will hardly need. You can then learn the basics and then look into the fine details after. Watching someone doing it is far better than some 400 page manual. 

One step at a time. 

[micstatic 4,319]

I would start with Chucks Guides.  Link below.  They are great.  I have been simming since around 1990.  Didn't pick up the FMS's until a few years ago.  Mainly because I was using FSNavigator for many years and using that as an FMS.  Or something like it.  I regret waiting so long.  I know fly the FSLabs mostly.  But started my fms flying with the 737 and 777.  

https://www.mudspike.com/chucks-guides-fsx-p3d/

Best part of these guides is that they are very concise and logical to follow.  They won't answer every question, but they will answer the majority 

Edited March 16, 2020 by micstatic

[G550flyer 1,013]

Spilok,

Here's the beauty of using that FMS. It opens up a large volume of approaches. It automates your departures and arrivals. My first jet was a 4 engine heavy(C-141B) and it didn't have a sophisticated FMS. Now days, I wouldn't want to fly anything without the box lol. Just start using it. Most are intuitive and steps you through page by page when preparing for a flight.

 

[duckbilled 310]

I took a long to to commit to learning on. I cut corners now sometimes, but I'm really glad I gave in.

I actually used the tutorial flight that came with the NGX.

[SimSlim 5]

I used the PMDG NGX tutorial from London to Amsterdam to Innsbruck.  When I gracefully descended in the clouds and auto-landed the 738 in dense fog at Schiphol I was hooked.  Just do every step in the tutorial (you can pause the sim to take the time to do it right the first time) and you'll be on your way.   Fill-in details on subsequent flights.  FMC flying is great in the tubers!    

Edited March 16, 2020 by SimSlim
Added an item

[spesimen 135]

hmm, i learned on the pmdg tutorial also. first with the original v1 747 and then with the ngx.

they look intimidating because of the old school calculator interface. it can seem cryptic because some of the shorthand abbreviations and flow aren't immediately obvious.

but really it is just like a flight planning app that has a list of waypoints and lets you adjust/edit them, and pick approaches etc. that's really just about it! most have places to enter some important information about your fight like weights and intended speeds and so forth that help it calculate correctly. once you get the hang of it they are actually quite easy to use.

good luck!

cheers,

-andy crosby

[Christopher Low 5,353]

The PMDG planes have excellent tutorials that teach you the basics of setting up flights.

[Chock 17,769]

Quick and dirty guide to the FMC and its CDU interface.

All the following is based on a type commonly found in a Boeing airliner, but they all work pretty much the same, however, for learning, the Boeing FMCs tend to use the more commonplace terminology, Airbus CDUs are called the MCDU, and whilst similar, there's a bit more to matters with an Airbus owing to the greater automation on an average Airbus, so the one in a Boeing is an easier one to have a 'first go at':

The FMS (flight management system), or FMC (flight management computer), is the avionics gizmo which slaves to the autopilot. The CDU (computer display unit) is the interface to that FMC. Bear in mind that many people call the CDU the FMC, which it technically is not, but most people know what they mean when they do this, as the terms have become somewhat interchangeable.

So, the CDU is the thing in the cockpit which looks like a big pocket calculator, mounted down on the centre pedestal (there are often two or three of these, one for each pilot and sometimes a third one in the middle of the seats which both pilots can operate). All of the data for you flight is inputted into this via the keypad and the buttons along the sides of the screen, and there is a 'bare minimum' of stuff you need to put in to get it to function, but some stuff is, strictly speaking, not necessary to input in order to have it function.

As with all aeroplanes, the avionics will work if you have power supplied to them, and in an airliner, that means either running an engine, or an auxiliary power unit, or using a ground power connection, or running off batteries. All airliners have a set of switches up on the overhead panel which allow you to select which power source the avionics are being supplied from, the various power sources are called 'buses', which is short for busbar. The term is derived from the latin word omnibus, which means 'for all', and indicates that each electrical bus carries all the power current for a system. So when you jump in an airliner, the first thing you need to do is get power to the systems by running an APU, or choosing a battery, and then selecting that power source via the bus switch on the overhead.

Having got power to the system. The next thing you need to be aware of, is that an FMC needs to 'know where it is' on the planet in order to have a starting point which it can then begin from, to help you navigate to where you want to go. Airliners use a few different things to learn their position, such as triangulating their location from several radio signals of known beacons which the FMC has stored in its database, but the really important one is the IRS (inertial reference system). The IRS is a set of ring laser gyros in the front and rear of the aeroplane which when spun up to operating speed, can detect tiny movements by measuring gyroscopic precession. So, if the FMC knows where it is at the start of your flight, any movement your aeroplane makes, will be detected by the gyros and the aeroplane will know which way it is going, if the FMC systems then combine this with radio triangulation info, they can be very accurate for navigation.

So, when your aeroplane is stationary. You need to 'tell' the FMC where it is. Up on the airliner's overhead, you will often see a panel which allows you to 'align' the gyros. This can take up to fifteen minutes to achieve, because the gyros detect the rotation of the Earth (fifteen degrees drift per hour, this is why it can take a while), since the amount the planet rotates and the speed at which it does so (1040 mph at the equator) varies depending on your latitude (i.e. you spin a bit slower the further north or south from the equator you are), the gyros can read the amount of drift they are detecting and combine this with detecting the direction of magnetic north, and from this, the airliner can figure out where it is. Most flight sim airliners will give you an option to speed this process up, usually found in the options on the CDU. But, you can 'help' the FMC to know its position by telling the airliner where it is. Airports used to have the lat and long coordinates painted in big white letters at the head of each stand to enable pilots to type that info into older navigation systems, but these days you can just tell the FMC what airport you are at and which stand you are parked on and the FMC will pull that info from its database.

So, with an FMC, first up before you start putting route data in, you make sure the airliner knows where it is. To do that, you look at buttons on the CDU and find the one marked 'menu', and click on that. Then you click on the button alongside the text INIT REF (initial reference). This is your start point for the process of using an FMC. There will be a line of information which says POS (position), or possibly POS INIT (position initialisation). Now, on the CDU screen, lines of information on the screen have buttons adjacent to them, and the adjacent button allows you to select that bit of info. These buttons along the sides of the screen are called the Line Select Keys. So they are referred to as LSKs, and then they are referred to by a number as well, for clarity. So you'll read about LSK1, or LSK2, and now you know what that means. So, you select POS and you'll see a screen which allows you to either type in the ICAO code for the airport and its gate number where you are, or you can type in the entire lat/long number.

So, using the keypad, you would type in for example KJFK (Kennedy International) and when KJFK is in the line at the bottom of the screen (this area is called the scratchpad), you'd then click the LSK next to where it says REF AIRPORT (reference Airport). That text will go into the blank field and bingo, your aeroplane knows where it is. This is the gist of using an FMC's CDU. The thing to be aware of here is that what you type in has to be right or the FMC will not accept it, so if you make a typo, there is a delete button on the kepypad and clear button too, so always make sure there is no old bits of typing in the scratchpad or your typing will become tedious.

Now you would go to the INDEX page of the CDU by clicking the LSK button alongside where it says INDEX. You would then see a page option called PERF (performance). On this page you would type in various bits of info using the keypad, and then clicking on the relevant LSK alongside the blanks to input the pertinent data, for example, it will have a blank slot marked ZFW (zero fuel weight) i.e. the weight of the aeroplane with the cargo and passengers on board, but not including the weight of the fuel. So, you'd find out what that is (from the flight sim's VEHICLE menu - on the real aeroplane this would be on the loadsheet which the dispatcher handed to you). When you knew that, you'd type it into the FMC so that the number appeared in the scratchpad, and then click the LSK alongside the relevant blank for ZFW. 

Below is a picture of a CDU in B747-400. I have typed in '100' and you can see that on the scratchpad area of the screen. I want to put that info into the FMC to tell the aeroplane to use a Cost Index of 100 (cost index is the level of economy the autothrottle will use when doing things such as setting climb or cruise settings, the different value tells the FMC to do things such as: 'be economical' or 'I don't care, go as fast as you can'). Each airline has a cost index it wants its pilots to use depending on whether they are a budget airline of a flashy one, so they might use an index of 5, 10, 100 or whatever. So, with 100 in the scratchpad, I click the left hand LSK5 button (i.e. the fifth button down) alongside where it says cost index, and that info goes into the system.

FMC CDUs have many pages like this, and sometimes sections have more than one sub page, so there are a couple of buttons on the keypad marked 'next' and 'prev' which allow you to navigate to these sub pages.

So basically, to use an FMC, you tell the aeroplane where it is, then you tell it how you want it to perform and tell it how much fuel it has and how much it weighs, tell it what airport you want to start at, what runway you want to use, what your flap setting is, where you want to go, how fast and how high you want to fly, and via what waypoints etc, etc, and then you hit the EXEC button (execute) to okay it all and you are done. The EXEC button lights up in green to remind you to press it when you are done putting info in.

The Autopilot has an LNAV and a VNAV button. (lateral navigation and vertical navigation). And so if all your FMC info is correctly inputted, these will control your flight as per what you put into the FMC if you turn on the autopilot and then press the LNAV and VNAV buttons on the autopilot control panel.

Lots of FMCs in flight sim airliners will have an option to 'use the current flight plan', so putting a route in can be as simple as using your sims route planner and then choosing that option on your FMC. A thing to be aware of is that sometimes a flight plan will have a gap in it, known as a discontinuity, and so if your EXEC button is not lighting up in green for you to okay everything, you check the LEGS page of the flight plan route and scroll through its pages to find if there is a gap in your route, which would be marked DISCO (nothing to do with 70's music and Donna Summer etc). To clear a DISCO in your flight plan, you click on the LSK alongside the next good waypoint, this puts it into the scratchpad, and then you click on the LSK next to where it says DISCO and that sorts it out. To clear a DISCO in the 1970s, get on the dance floor and start doing really bad 'dad dancing'. 🤣

See? Not too hard to understand and with a bit of a playing about, you will suss it out in no time. It's actually kind of cool when you know all this stuff, so trust me, it is worth having a go as it will give you a good sense of achievement and you'll find that it is nowhere near as frightening as you might have supposed.

If you want a good laugh in the real world, wait until five minutes before gate departure when the airliner is still on the ground power bus, and then pull out the ground power lead so the airliner loses all power and the flight plan and IRS settings clear from the FMC. That will make you really popular with the pilots as they then have to type all that stuff in again. Muhahahahaha!

Edited March 16, 2020 by Chock

[pedrotrindade 335]

1 hour ago, Christopher Low said:

The PMDG planes have excellent tutorials that teach you the basics of setting up flights.

+1

[Farlis 2,287]

And the good thing is that once you have cracked the logic behind how these things work you can fly them all.

Personally I prefer flying with FMC these days because they are so invaluable for proper flight planning, including knowing your V Speeds and correct amount of fuel.

[duckbilled 310]

As I mentioned, it took me a long time to convert, but here are a couple of things that helped a lot. Before I switched to the NGX, my main ac was the QW757 using the GPS for navigation.

I used to use the default flight planner and ATC. I really do want to fly with ATC, so I purchased ProATCx. It supplies ATC and has a flight planner that allows you to import the plans into most payware aircraft. There are better flight planners out there, but it is a solid product. Also, since I'm stopped using the GPS, I really missed having the flightplan overlayed on a moving map. Navigraph charts cloud is pretty good. ProATCx has a moving map feature, but I like the Navigraph one a lot more.

Picking a flightplanner that easily exports to the NGX is key (and most, if not all will). This way you don't have to type in everything manually.