14 hours ago, Chock said:

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/

 

You took the recommendation out of my mouth.

5 hours ago, Chock said:

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!

Wow, Chock,  Thanks for this Q&D tutorial.  I will read every word and give it a try.

Stan

How often do you "update" the information in an FMC?  Must you do it in flight simulation?  The SID and STAR thing is something I've got to get my brain to understand.

Stan

Are you a Navigraph customer?

6 hours ago, Chock said:

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!

Usually the IRS would still be powered by hot battery Bus and the FMC should not lose any data unless Battery is providing very low voltage...?

2 hours ago, spilok said:

How often do you "update" the information in an FMC?  Must you do it in flight simulation?  The SID and STAR thing is something I've got to get my brain to understand.

Stan

A Navigraph subscription will take care of that. In general, you update monthly. The Ultimate includes charts. With the charts, you get a moving map and it doesn't have to be networked.

4 hours ago, spilok said:

The SID and STAR thing is something I've got to get my brain to understand.

Stan

Hi Stan, SID's (Standard Instrument Departures) and STAR's STandard ARrivals  are just a set of pre-determined waypoints leading from or to a runway.

They often have names relevant to the area. For example, in Dublin, the local river is named the Liffey and from Dublin airport, there is the LIFFY 5A departure.

They are usually 5 letter codes followed by a number.

See below as an example of Dublin,Ireland

http://iaip.iaa.ie/iaip/Published Files/AIP Files/AD/Chart Files/EIDW/EI_AD_2_EIDW_24-10_en.pdf (LIFFY 5A departs to the North of the airport ,whereas DEXEN 1A departs to the south of the city.

It's sort of short-hand for a set of directions to the nearest mall, but instead of saying, take the 3rd turn to the left and go straight on, you give the driver the way-points instead, which has all the directions pre-programed into his car GPS or mobile phone.

 

 

It can be as complex as you want to make it. The essence of airliner FMCs is setting up an autopilot route and flight information through a clunky but logical interface. Being simmers, we have automated tools that take most of the real world pain out of this.

The simplest way to do it, IMHO, is to sign up to Simbrief (free) and Navigraph (not free). Your Navigraph data subscription comes with a data download manager. When you install the Navigraph software, you point that download manager at your add-on aeroplanes and it automagically installs all the right navdata in all the right places so your simulated plane can read it when it needs it. Easy!

Simbrief is used to generate routes and flight plans. Their interface is very simple: you enter your aircraft type, departure and destination airport, and it generates the rest. Like Navigraph it comes with a downloader so you can import that generated flight plan direct into your simulated aeroplane. Easy!

Not sure where you're going? Navigraph lets you import your Simbrief flight plan and lays it out on an aviation chart with all the airways shown for you. It then highlights your route in colour. For the cherry on the cake, it also has a live map function so you always know where you are.

Once you fire up the sim itself, all you have to do is click the right buttons in your cockpit to activate your Simbrief flight plan and off you go. To give you a practical guide, with the Aerosoft A320 series I plan on 15 minutes of setup time, most of which is external to the sim, before opening the throttles for taxi.

There are plenty of FMC guides out there. All FMCs run on roughly the same principles but they differ a bit in the detail. Chuck's Guides, as mentioned earlier, are very good for a simple 'get-you-flying' start. He doesn't answer all the questions but that's not his point: he gets you airborne and gives you the basics so you can go off and learn more as it suits you to do so.

But it all boils down to this...

You fire up your aircraft. Before you go anywhere, you need to tell it how much payload and fuel is onboard so it can do useful things like when to start descending nice and smoothly for a perfect landing. So you enter that info into the FMS. You need to tell it where you're flying from and where you're flying to, and how you want to get from A to B (the flightplan) so you can turn the autopilot on and let it do the hard work. So you enter those (remember the Simbrief stage above? Type in departure and destination into the FMS, click twice to activate the flight plan you generated earlier, et voila). You enter some other information depending on type (in Airbuses you'd put in the takeoff flap setting and V-speeds) and then you're ready to go. That's it.

Of course there's far more to it if you want there to be more, but that's the very basics that'll get you airborne with a programmed FMS that flies for you while you gaze out the window at the scenery.😉

SIDS and STARS are easy, they're just pre-set routes for takeoffs and landings. Think of setting up a route on your car's satnav. The satnav knows where the public road network is and how to navigate through it but it doesn't know where your driveway is. The SID and STAR are just extra nav instructions (driveways) to and from the main road (airway route) network. They're separate from the main flight plan because ATC might change them while you're en route, for example if the runway in use changes when the wind shifts direction. But... Simbrief can even generate the SID and STAR selection that you need, if you're flying offline!

Go forth and experiment. At worst you'll get the plane lost so you have to turn off the autopilot and fly it yourself again. And that's what we're all doing this for... right?

Even though I quit buying PMDG after I bought their 737 NG for FSX (mostly due to edited nevermind) - I too would recommend a 737 FMS for a good intro.  If you've never purchased a more involved addon, I would purchase PMDG's "new" 737 NGU.  I feel they have excellent tutorials included with the product (or so I assume based on the fact that they did for the old FSX version)

9 hours ago, spilok said:

How often do you "update" the information in an FMC?  Must you do it in flight simulation?  The SID and STAR thing is something I've got to get my brain to understand.

Stan

In a flight sim, it isn't really that necessary unless you are a stickler for ultimate realism, although you will find that some navaids you want to use in your airliner might not tally with your flight sim or the real world if you do have an update which is not entirely compatible across the board.

In the real world on an actual airliner with an FMC, the database is updated regularly. If I recall correctly, the updates occur every 28 days. Usually this is to cover things such as scheduled maintenance of navaids or runways which are out of action for resurfacing and such, whereby they might be inoperable for a few days, so that no flight plans in an FMC will use information which does not tally with the real world. In each update, most things won't change, but sometimes a new navaid or some such might be included. sometimes these are not included in an FMC update, instead being made known by the use of NOTAMS (notices to airmen).

Since these FMC updates occur regularly, they are called AIRAC (Aeronautical Information Regulation and Control) 'cycles'. They are published by the governing body which determines and promulgates this info, which is the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO). Pretty much everything in the world of aviation in terms of rules and recommendations is as a result of ICAO or occasionally, the FAI (Fédération Aéronautique Internationale) and their rulings. These rules and regulations are divided into various published volumes, known as Annexes. For example, ICAO Annex 1 covers aviation licensing, type ratings etc, whereas ICAO Annex 15 is the one which deals with the information which typically goes into an FMC's database, such as runway data, navaid data, etc. So, if you ever wondered why a taxiway centre line has green lights, or why an inter-stand clearway has white zig-zagged lines, or why you pronounce 5 as 'fife' and 9 as 'niner' when talking on the radio, the answer is: All those ICAO Annexes have determined what is standard for all that stuff. So, yes you can update the FMC in your sim airliner with a new Airac, but in all honesty, it doesn't really matter that much if you do not.

SIDs (standard instrument departure) and STARS (standard terminal arrival route) seem complex, but they really aren't. Think of a SID like this...

Let's say I want to get to London, starting out from Manchester, driving in my car. The motorway (freeway) I would use is called the M25. But I don't live conveniently right at the start of that motorway and nor do many other people who might want to use it, so I (and everyone else) needs to go along a few minor roads first before getting to the motorway, then go down an on-ramp in order to filter into the high speed motorway traffic smoothly. But if instead of doing that, everyone who lived in the same town as me just drove in a straight line to get to that motorway from where their house was, then they screeched into the fast moving motorway traffic, it would not be long before a disaster occurred. So we use a few recognised entry points on the motorways (junctions) so that everyone knows what everyone is doing.

So in this analogy, the M25 motorway is my flight plan, but the roads I drive along before getting onto that motorway are my SID. And when I come off the motorway at London and drive down some minor roads to get to my final destination in London, that is my STAR. In other words, SIDS and STARS get you to and from a runway to your main flight route. Thus having airliners fly SIDS and STARS means that ATC will have everything on their radar scopes travelling along organised routings.

There are different SIDS and STARS for each runway, and the SID  which you use is determined by which way you intend to turn in order to commence flying along your flight plan's route at departure, and similarly, the STAR you use depends on which direction you are coming from toward the airport, and which runway they have in use at the time. This is why you generally know your SID when you set off, but you can sometimes be near the end of your flight plan route before ATC tell you which STAR to use, so you usually put the STAR in whilst en-route.

Back with updates however, in case you were curious...

In real airliners, FMCs themselves also have their operating software updated from time to time. It's a bit like when you download a patch to your favourite flight sim aeroplane. The updates for an FMC sort out little bugs and glitches and sometimes add some new capabilities. For example, the most recent patch for real Boeing 737 NG FMCs, added some stuff to support FANS (Future Air Navigation System). FANS is a system whereby ATC communications are sent via text and a display in the cockpit shows these messages. The hardware has a bunch of quick preset answers on a screen which you can click on to reply, or you can if necessary type a custom or specific reply. This is to ensure there is no miscommunication of important messages, or that no messages are missed by having been blocked by other transmissions from other radio communications made at the same time.

So if you were ever amazed by how you hear some pilots doing a word perfect readback of a complicated IFR clearance or taxi instructions and wondered how the hell they can do that so perfectly, the answer is they are in all likelihood literally reading it back because their aeroplane has some kind of FANS capability.

Have you looked at Flightdeck2sim tutorials on youtube?

I actually prefer to input flightplans directly into the FMC (as opposed to importing them from elsewhere). Having said that, my relatively short flights do not usually involve complicated route plans, but it is still fun to use the keypad for the job.

Edited March 17, 20206 yr by Christopher Low

The beauty, or at least one of them, with FMCs, is that they will quite happily accept a start and finish waypoint flight plan, with no other waypoints, if you like. Thus if you just put a DEP and ARR in there, that's good enough to work.

So in learning how to operate one, you can take it slow before fretting about simultaneously learning all that jet airway routing stuff if you like. Similarly, you don't have to use a SID or a STAR either, it's entirely up to you. So if you are used to a simple A to B GPS magenta line route, then there is nothing stopping you from doing that with an FMC if you like.

Edited March 17, 20206 yr by Chock

Here's a good guide for the 737 systems and the link below covers the FMC 

http://www.b737.org.uk/fmc.htm

http://www.b737.org.uk/index.htm

13 hours ago, Manny Ortiz said:

Have you looked at Flightdeck2sim tutorials on youtube?

No...I have not, but I will.

Stan