2 hours ago, anavsun said:

it seems that I have to handfly the aircraft from the TRM initial approach fix otherwise I end up missing the runway. I'm either too high or too fast. And, I don't understand why the altitude constraint at the PGY waypoint goes all the way up to FL190 (save fuel?) when the MSA at KPSP is only at 12,700 ft. I don't think there are any obstacles requiring FL190 along the flight. A few questions: 

1. Are there any differences between iFly 737 Max8 and PMDG's 737-800 implementation of RNP-AR and missed approaches?  
2. Is there an autoland or autopilot mode for the RNP approach in both iFly and PMDG versions? 
3. How do I know if I am at the RNP approach? Is the FMA supposed to be what is shown in the picture below for the RNP approach?
4. How are missed approaches initiated? Do I press the TOGA switch again or are missed approaches completely handflown? Can I use an auto-pilot for missed approaches?
5. When doing an RNP-AR approach does that literally mean that the flight has to be formally authorized each time or simply that the aircraft has to be certified to fly the approach? In the first case, how is authorization obtained?

1.  Yes, in the sense that PMDG 's LNAV tracking is still not very precise.  It's been a long-standing issue of theirs. 

2.  LNAV / VNAV PTH.  No autoland; never an autoland on anything but a cat II or III ILS.

3.  Yup, LNAV / VNAV PTH.  It helps to visualize via the nav performance scales if you manually set the RNP value you're using (from the chart's minima block) in the lower left of the legs page, but in this case it's .3 anyway so a moot point as that's what the box defaults to on approach.  RNP procedures can go as low as .10 RNP, and you'd want to set that.

4.  You press TOGA for flight guidance and autothrottles (if engaged), but the autopilot (if engaged) will disconnect in a 737.  The initial portion of any missed off of any approach but an autoland will be hand flown.  A 737 will only fly a coupled missed if it started out as a dual channel approach.

5.  Just means the aircraft has to be certified for it, and if a commercial operator (vs a private owner of a bizjet), an authorization needs to exist in your company ops specs for that type of approach.  At an airline, the basic rule is that if you have the chart, you can do the approach.  We just omit charts from our coverage that we don't have authorization for.  I have no NDB charts in my company chart coverage for instance, since we stopped maintaining our authorization for them because we simply don't use them.  We've just built an RNP everywhere we need one.

Thermal is the name of the VOR you're starting the approach from (TRM is the identifier).  Functionally in this case it's just another fix.  The procedure is an (AR) because some transitions require it to be, and including those transitions makes the procedure usable for aircraft coming from different directions.  I do believe there's a non-(AR) RNAV approach from TRM, if I remember right.

FL190 at PGY is probably more of a restriction on the SID out of SAN, to get you up and over the arrivals descending from the east into the LA basin.  Most of the eastbound SIDS out of SAN have such a restriction.  Can sometimes be close if you're taking off full on a hot day, loaded with gas for a transcon to Boston or New York with a bunch of alternate fuel for thunderstorms etc.

1 hour ago, Stearmandriver said:

No autoland; never an autoland on anything but a cat II or III ILS.

Ok, got it. thanks. No autoland. But what about auto-pilot --say up to the FAF or the decision height?
 

1 hour ago, Stearmandriver said:

The initial portion of any missed off of any approach but an autoland will be hand flown.  A 737 will only fly a coupled missed if it started out as a dual channel approach.

Not sure if I understand your comment that "an autoland will be hand flown".  Sounds contradictory? Why would an autoland require human intervention.

Also, what do you mean by "a dual channel approach"?  I don't think it means having CMD-A and CMD-b active right?.

1 hour ago, Stearmandriver said:

Just means the aircraft has to be certified for it, and if a commercial operator (vs a private owner of a bizjet), an authorization needs to exist in your company ops specs for that type of approach.  At an airline, the basic rule is that if you have the chart, you can do the approach.

 An RNP approach certification for an aircraft simply means that the software has been upgraded for that approach right? That is, an RNP approach does not require a separate hardware device that has to be installed in the 737 or biz-jet? And, is an RNP authorization for a specific aircraft, or is it for all aircraft of the type eg. all 737-800's? Does RNP require special training for all pilots?

2 hours ago, Stearmandriver said:

I guess I'm still not understanding something.  Are you asking why climb rate increases when the transition occurs from indicated to mach?  Because the speed of sound decreases with altitude, so latching on to a mach number during climb means you're climbing more steeply than you were when you were holding a constant indicated speed. 

I'm not sure why you mention 9k ft/ min as that certainly wouldn't be normal, but I didn't see anything like that in your video near the time stamp you referenced.  I saw maybe 1,500ft / min, which is reasonable.  I can definitely verify this is how 737s (and really any jet) flies.  I do believe other sim add-ons do this; if you're using one that doesn't, it's simply not correct.

The PMDG jet aircraft do the same thing - as soon as you transition to MACH the airspeed target on the airspeed indicator tape will start to ratchet down and the rate of climb increases to chase the airspeed indication.

8 minutes ago, somiller said:

The PMDG jet aircraft do the same thing - as soon as you transition to MACH the airspeed target on the airspeed indicator tape will start to ratchet down and the rate of climb increases to chase the airspeed indication.

And what about the banana bar on PMDG? It behaves differently on Ifly, and the v\s too. But I'll check it again.

20 minutes ago, Claudius_ said:

And what about the banana bar on PMDG? It behaves differently on Ifly, and the v\s too. But I'll check it again.

What seems different about the green banana?  Seems like it worked correctly in your video.

5 minutes ago, Stearmandriver said:

What seems different about the green banana?  Seems like it worked correctly in your video.

That's not my video, and Ifly banana bar behaves differently from pmdg. You should know this.

1 hour ago, anavsun said:

Ok, got it. thanks. No autoland. But what about auto-pilot --say up to the FAF or the decision height?

We're probably hijacking this thread; might be worth creating a different one for RNP discussion.  But to answer these:  yes, autopilot / autothrottles can be engaged until decision altitude.

 

1 hour ago, anavsun said:

Not sure if I understand your comment that "an autoland will be hand flown".  Sounds contradictory? Why would an autoland require human intervention.

Also, what do you mean by "a dual channel approach"?  I don't think it means having CMD-A and CMD-b active right?.

I phrased my answer awkwardly.  A dual channel approach is one where both CMD A and B are engaged - an autoland.  If you go missed by pressing TOGA from an autoland approach, the autopilot will remain engaged and fly the missed approach. 

Any other coupled approach (that's the term for an approach flown by autopilot; the autopilot is "coupled" to the flight guidance) will be flown single channel, and that single channel will disengage when you press TOGA.  Thus, you'll be hand flying.  This is a 737 thing for reasons I don't know; other aircraft can remain coupled to a single autopilot channel and fly a missed.  

1 hour ago, anavsun said:

An RNP approach certification for an aircraft simply means that the software has been upgraded for that approach right? That is, an RNP approach does not require a separate hardware device that has to be installed in the 737 or biz-jet? And, is an RNP authorization for a specific aircraft, or is it for all aircraft of the type eg. all 737-800's? Does RNP require special training for all pilots?

The certification means the entire system is capable of accurately flying a procedure down to the specified RNP.  Some aircraft might be certified only to RNP .30 but they can do RF legs and other aspects of these procedures, so they're certified for RNP (AR) to .30.  Another might be certified to RNP .20.  The 737 is the platform that was used to invent these procedures, and is certified to the lowest RNP of anything: RNP .10, and all RNP (AR) procedures.  But the certification is not just a matter of software in the FMC, but also the precision that the flight guidance and auto flight is capable of.  

Now, if you're a private operator flying under part 91 of the federal aviation regulations, you can do anything your aircraft is certified by the manufacturer to do (well, your insurance might have a say in this.). So if you own a bizjet capable of these, per the FARs anyway, you can do them. 

If you're flying for a commercial operator (and this will be the large majority of folks doing these procedures), your operator needs specific authorization in their ops specs for every type of procedure flown.  They won't be granted this authorization until the feds have evaluated both their standard profile for the type of procedure, and the training their pilots get on flying the profile, both all-engine and with an engine failed.

Edited March 10, 20251 yr by Stearmandriver

10 minutes ago, Claudius_ said:

That's not my video, and Ifly banana bar behaves differently from pmdg. You should know this.

I'll be honest, I haven't flown the PMDG since the iFly came out, minus a few tests that showed me their LNAV was still not working correctly and they still haven't fixed most of the long-running flight model bugs.  But I don't remember the altitude predictor arc working incorrectly; have they broken it recently?  What does it do that's different from the iFly?

20 minutes ago, Stearmandriver said:

We're probably hijacking this thread; might be worth creating a different one for RNP discussion.  But to answer these:  yes, autopilot / autothrottles can be engaged until decision altitude.

 

I phrased my answer awkwardly.  A dual channel approach is one where both CMD A and B are engaged - an autoland.  If you go missed by pressing TOGA from an autoland approach, the autopilot will remain engaged and fly the missed approach. 

Any other coupled approach (that's the term for an approach flown by autopilot; the autopilot is "coupled" to the flight guidance) will be flown single channel, and that single channel will disengage when you press TOGA.  Thus, you'll be hand flying.  This is a 737 thing for reasons I don't know; other aircraft can remain coupled to a single autopilot channel and fly a missed.  

The certification means the entire system is capable of accurately flying a procedure down to the specified RNP.  Some aircraft might be certified only to RNP .30 but they can do RF legs and other aspects of these procedures, so they're certified for RNP (AR) to .30.  Another might be certified to RNP .20.  The 737 is the platform that was used to invent these procedures, and is certified to the lowest RNP of anything: RNP .10, and all RNP (AR) procedures.  But the certification is not just a matter of software in the FMC, but also the precision that the flight guidance and auto flight is capable of.  

Now, if you're a private operator flying under part 91 of the federal aviation regulations, you can do anything your aircraft is certified by the manufacturer to do (well, your insurance might have a say in this.). So if you own a bizjet capable of these, per the FARs anyway, you can do them. 

If you're flying for a commercial operator (and this will be the large majority of folks doing these procedures), your operator needs specific authorization in their ops specs for every type of procedure flown.  They won't be granted this authorization until the feds have evaluated both their standard profile for the type of procedure, and the training their pilots get on flying the profile, both all-engine and with an engine failed.

Thank you!

Surprised no one has mentioned it;  v1.0.3 update for the iFly released today.  Includes a pretty extensive changelog (some of the items are even mine... I feel heard 😂).

54 minutes ago, Stearmandriver said:

Surprised no one has mentioned it;  v1.0.3 update for the iFly released today.  Includes a pretty extensive changelog (some of the items are even mine... I feel heard 😂).

This one is the real deal. Has well surpassed Pmdg 737.

Does it have time acceleration yet? Can't find any reference to it in the change log. Not interested until they add that feature.

47 minutes ago, Speedbird 217 said:

Does it have time acceleration yet? Can't find any reference to it in the change log. Not interested until they add that feature.

Yes, it handles 2x just fine.  4x seems ok on straight segments.  I think there is a "smart" time accel feature in the tablet but I only control it manually with the sim keybinding.  But yeah, I use 2x all the time.

10 minutes ago, Stearmandriver said:

Yes, it handles 2x just fine.  4x seems ok on straight segments.  I think there is a "smart" time accel feature in the tablet but I only control it manually with the sim keybinding.  But yeah, I use 2x all the time.

Thanks a lot for the insight! That smart feature is exactly what I am looking for...especially making sure fuel burn is accurate and doesn't remain at 1x. Do you have any more info on that?

Looks like a good change log, hopefully they’re well on their way to a 2024 release.