59 minutes ago, Lotharen said:

Ahh okay. So I could just use the 'random' option instead for that? I was just trying to make it match what I had in Simbrief. I found the tutorial PDF and a good checklist so I'm going to give it another go this morning/afternoon sometime. Thanks your your help everyone!

You certainly can.

2 hours ago, Lotharen said:

Ahh okay. So I could just use the 'random' option instead for that? I was just trying to make it match what I had in Simbrief. I found the tutorial PDF and a good checklist so I'm going to give it another go this morning/afternoon sometime. Thanks your your help everyone!

I usually ignore the weights and fuel in simbrief. Most of my flights in the 737 are around 1-1 1/2 hours, so I load 1/3 fuel and random passenger loads in the FMC. The FMC will then tell you what the ZFW is..

Thanks for all the tips.

Had trouble on this last flight today. Took off, was able to select heading to vector me to my first waypoint. Could never get autopilot to follow the course. LNAV and VNAV were on and active, autothrottle was going good as well. Would just never turn when it was suppose to. Then for some reason using the heading knob stopped working. I checked for failures and didn't see any so it wasn't hydraulic fluid like I had read in a few posts. I'm stumped lol. 

Sounds like you coughed up a fur ball and fogged up your goggles at the wrong time. 🤣

13 hours ago, ailchim said:

You don't enter ZFW at all.

Yes you do. I do it all the time. I never bother with the numbers of passengers, and amount of cargo. It will set itself an appropriate number for the chosen ZFW.

3 hours ago, Bobsk8 said:

I usually ignore the weights and fuel in simbrief. Most of my flights in the 737 are around 1-1 1/2 hours, so I load 1/3 fuel and random passenger loads in the FMC. The FMC will then tell you what the ZFW is..

What an odd way to use simbrief. The entire point is that it will give you the appropriate weight and legal amounts of fuel you need. Your way just yields the risk of loading either too much or too little.

17 hours ago, Lotharen said:

After a long time and several posts asking about study level aircraft, I finally purchased the PMDG 737-800. I'm totally lost now and have a lot to learn but I'm glad I made the purchase. I was following along with a video and managed to start, taxi and take off. However, I couldn't figure out how to use heading (since I needed to vector) and for some reason the nose pitched down and I crashed due to overspeed.😱  It's all a learning curve though, so Ill get it eventually. I found the PDF and will use that. Video's tend to ramble a bit and I can follow along with a PDF so much better. I just hope it is as good as the one FBW has for their A320. 

I also purchased A Pilots Life 2 and like what I am seeing so far. Havn't been able to do the first flight due to not knowing how to operate the 738 so can't say much about it right now. 

Anyway, had to share my excitement. Hopefully Ill complete my first flight tomorrow!

Have fun! And for the heading: Tune in the heading press the HDG button. Check in the FMA (above the attitude indicator) that HDG is actually selected. To the overspeed: You probably disabled the autothrust.

To the OP

If you're comfortable with the Airbus it's a good idea to keep in mind that the Boeing does not have the autotrim feature. Which means that during manual climbs and descents (especially on approach) you will have to manually trim the airplane. This caught me out a couple of times and I had to use a lot of back / forward pressure to keep it pointed to where it needed to be.

As for heading, remember to always push the Heading button to engage the manual function (set heading then push button).

Congrats!  I remember when I first got the PMDG NGX…my first experience with an in depth 737 sim.  I had to religiously follow the tutorials or I’d never get the plane in the air.  Now many years later I can do it almost as a reflex from cold and dark to shut down.  Lots of repetition over the years has burned it into my brain for sure.

Now ask me to start up pretty much anything in DCS, navigate to a target and destroy it…I’m completely lost.

23 hours ago, Lotharen said:

 

I also purchased A Pilots Life 2 and like what I am seeing so far

Can't fly without it ever since I bought it. Good choice!

I'm finally making some head way. I'm trying to complete 1 flight. Its been a heck of a learning curve for sure. Almost had the entire thing down tonight and mucked it up at the end. My flight plan wanted vectors and I panicked and hit a 'few' wrong buttons. This was rather amusing because right after take-off I needed to vector and did just fine. Needless to say I bounced the runway and flipped upside down just past the end. It was a valiant attempt. Each time I'm learning more and programming the FMS is getting easier and easier. My flight, for anyone interested was this: 

 

CYEG/30 N0456F360 DCT ANDIE Q860 NADPI DCT HE HE4 CYXX/07

 

Waypoints Omino is where I needed to vector to Misar - still not sure why it didn't connect them.

A lot of STARs have a termination point that only parallels the runway.  You can see OMINO here is marked with AT or ABOVE 3,000 and speed below 210 knots.  The turn to MISAR to be AT or ABOVE 2,000 and no faster than 200 knots.  I hate these Candian plates, lol.  It looks like MISAR is about 13 NM from the runway.  Anyhow, passing OMINO at 3,000, you can head direct to MISAR by line selecting MISAR in the FMC and moving it up.  Or enter HDG mode and turn to MISAR.  It's a good idea to overfly OMINO a bit because you likely won't be able to cut those 90 degree angles enough.  Have flaps 1 set and 200 knots for the base, set flap 5 and slow to 190 at MISAR.  Arm LOC and GS.  From VNAV it will capture the ILS and you can continue to slow and configure.  At some point you have to take over the speed window on the MCP.  Make sure to have the Vref speed and flap setting picked on the INIT page in the FMC early on and ILS/Course set in the radio and MCP.  Once you are stable on the final you can disconnect the AP and hand-fly if you want.

Edited March 4, 20233 yr by Orlaam

The current state of default ATC, where it won’t actually give you proper vectors, makes this harder than it should be when you have a STAR that ends in vectors.  You basically have to assume what ATC would want you to do.  On some approaches (more with straight in approaches) you can go directly from the last waypoint on the STAR to the first waypoint on the approach (usually aiming to be there at 3000 feet but check charts to be sure).

In cases like your Vancouver approach, it’s about boxing it off and getting yourself turned around/ lined up for landing as described above by @Orlaam .  Eventually though with experience this will all be east 🙂

Hopefully ATC eventually improves to provide the kind of vectors it should be.

On 2/27/2023 at 9:01 PM, Lotharen said:

also purchased A Pilots Life 2 and like what I am seeing so far. Havn't been able to do the first flight due to not knowing how to operate the 738 so can't say much about it right now. 

It's a very well done program with an approachable developer.  It starts out quite restrictive in terms of having to frequently fly similar  routes over and over.  But wisely enough flexibility starts to mature fairly quickly as you reach a critical mass of cash--you can buy for example a "flight ticket" to allow you to go fly any route by any other airline than the one you're currently employed by.  Or if you don't want to fly the next flight in the schedule you can 'skip' it for a fee.  Ideally I would prefer to be able to maintain more than one career but that is not an option in APL2 so their workarounds do ultimately help with this issue.  And, fortunately you can change employers relatively quickly.  Really enjoying New Zealand which I timed to sync w/the recent World Update.

@orlaam I found those plates just after posting my previous message. I'm about to try this again so hopefully I can report back my first success. I had gotten used to Airbus and its taking me a bit to get to grips with the Boeing. 

@regis9 The bad thing is I wasn't even using ATC for this flight. Figured that might be throwing to much at me all at once. Just wasn't expecting the vector, which is my fault since its listed on Aivlasoft EFB when I bring up the flight plan there. 

@Noel This particular flight is my first scheduled flight for that program. So completing this will give me a feather in my cap so to speak. I've been making a checklist (for newbies) while I learn. Tell you which overhead panel and quad the switch is located in to help me find things quicker. So far its worked and I've been refining it as I go.

 

Anyway, off to attempt this flight one more time.