Hi All

When I started out in the flight sim world, many years ago, it was usually General Aviation I was trying to get my head around.  My interest in trying to fly in large commercial aircraft has, unintentionally, coincided with the introduction by a number of developers introducing more and more realistic, modern, accurately-modelled beauties.  And so, while I could blag my way round landing a basic twin-prop - even though all sorts of lights were blinking at me - doing the same in a modern tubeliner, in a sim like this and with developers like these around, would take more than blagging!

But with the immense help from the excellent folks on this forum, little by little it's starting to sink in.  Last week, I managed to take-off and land the splendid IniBuilds A350 a number of times (mixed in with a greater number of perfect landings 1000' above the runway  ) and this week I've turned to PMDG's equally splendid Boeing 777F.  For no better reason than to remind myself that I succeeded at least once...here are some shots.

They are all captured through Obs Studio streamed from my Crystal Light VR headset (apols in advance if you therefore see multiple cursors in the pics).

Route - EGKK 26L (London Gatwick) to EBBR 25R (Brussels); Cruise at FL250

 

Too Late to turn back!

 

 

 

A tight climbing turn - the aircraft is already under full Autothrottle and Auto-piloted VNAV control:

 

 

Still climbing:

   

 

 

At 25000' and approaching TOD:

 

 

We're over the Belgian coast and the aircraft has started its descent.  The only thing I have done is wind down the ALT setting from 25000' to the ILS entry height of 2000', but all of the descent - levels and speeds - are being handled by the aircraft:

 

 

Belgium, early evening:

 

 

Flaps are being progressively lowered and gear down.  The aircraft is still fully managing the descent and speeds:

 

 

ILS is detected, not yet activated, and speed is dropping:

 

 

Auto throttle is now off; APP was activated for ILS to bring us to the threshold and now autobrakes are set and Autopilot is off too:

 

 

And we're down!  Reverse Thrust is on:

 

 

Reversers turned off, aircraft at turn-off-runway speed:

 

 

Welcome to Brussels!

 

Splendid Sim (MSFS2024); Splendid Aircraft (PMDG Boeing 777F) ;  Splendid patience and help (from you lot!) 

 

Edited March 3Mar 3 by AJZip2

@AJZip2

Wonderful success story…from your twin-prop experience to the heavies; the A350, and the B777F featured here. I recall you were beginning to learn flying the latter two, just a short while ago…🙂…

You’re a Pro now. I need to get back flying the 777F too.

Enjoyed the travel bits. The DHL freighter looks beautiful. I often see them lifting off into the overhead skies, from O’Hare.

Thanks for sharing, and have fun…!

Edited March 6Mar 6 by P_7878

5 hours ago, P_7878 said:

@AJZip2

Wonderful success story…from your twin-prop experience to the heavies; the A350, and the B777F featured here. I recall you were beginning to learn flying the latter two, just a short while ago…🙂…

You’re a Pro now. I need to get back flying the 777F too.

Enjoyed the travel bits. The DHL freighter looks beautiful. I often see them lifting off into the overhead skies, from O’Hare.

Thanks for sharing, and have fun…!

Yes - very satisfying.  The main challenge now, of course, is remembering the twins techniques after flying the heavies...and then remembering the heavies techniques after flying the twins again  

Great job! This was also one of my favorite real world planes to work on. 

Fantastic job you've done learning, keep it up.

15 hours ago, Jack_Sawyer said:

Great job! This was also one of my favorite real world planes to work on. 

Fantastic job you've done learning, keep it up.

Thanks!

At the moment, I'm battling at the other end of the scale - FSS's splendid Boeing727.  I'm using the coordinates-based CIV-A INS navigation system, trying to get from Ostend (EBOS) to London Gatwick (EGKK) from cold and dark to an ILS landing.

I've got the start-up, CIV-A INS aligning and programming, taxi, take-off, cruise, approach, localiser capture all pretty much sorted now (although that's taken me more hours than I am willing to admit ) but, at the moment, getting it to capture and follow the ILS beam down to touch down is proving 'elusive'.

I haven't found a way to successfully 'full-state-save' to allow me to just practice and crack the approach and landing method so that I don't have to spend an hour+ every time just getting back to the approach stage but got some thoughts of how I might be able to do that. 

I know we will all always want 'MORE!' but -in real terms - this is a stunningly amazing sim with some stunningly amazing aircraft developers supporting it...

2 minutes ago, AJZip2 said:

Thanks!

At the moment, I'm battling at the other end of the scale - FSS's splendid Boeing727.  I'm using the coordinates-based CIV-A INS navigation system, trying to get from Ostend (EBOS) to London Gatwick (EGKK) from cold and dark to an ILS landing.

I've got the start-up, CIV-A INS aligning and programming, taxi, take-off, cruise, approach, localiser capture all pretty much sorted now (although that's taken me more hours than I am willing to admit ) but, at the moment, getting it to capture and follow the ILS beam down to touch down is proving 'elusive'.

I haven't found a way to successfully 'full-state-save' to allow me to just practice and crack the approach and landing method so that I don't have to spend an hour+ every time just getting back to the approach stage but got some thoughts of how I might be able to do that. 

I know we will all always want 'MORE!' but -in real terms - this is a stunningly amazing sim with some stunningly amazing aircraft developers supporting it...

Can’t you just do touch and go’s? 

1 minute ago, Jack_Sawyer said:

Can’t you just do touch and go’s? 

Yes - that's probably my next plan of attack.  But first, I need to find a reliable way of doing a go-arounds and lining back up each time.  While there are a number of autopilot facilities available, some of them are a bit tricky with the mouse (the cockpit 'Turn' knob especially).  I haven't found a way yet of binding that particular turn knob to any of my Hotas or Stream Deck bits of kit...but still experimenting).

But, every cloud has its silver lining...the number of failed ILS landings has meant a disproportionate increase in last minute manual landings...and I've discovered the magic of that third engine!  👍

 

11 minutes ago, AJZip2 said:

Yes - that's probably my next plan of attack.  But first, I need to find a reliable way of doing a go-arounds and lining back up each time.  While there are a number of autopilot facilities available, some of them are a bit tricky with the mouse (the cockpit 'Turn' knob especially).  I haven't found a way yet of binding that particular turn knob to any of my Hotas or Stream Deck bits of kit...but still experimenting).

But, every cloud has its silver lining...the number of failed ILS landings has meant a disproportionate increase in last minute manual landings...and I've discovered the magic of that third engine!  👍

 

I reckon it takes practice. I love doing this in the PMDG 737’s and 777’s. Just like any small plane all I do is tune an active ILS and shoot approaches. It’s very relaxing for me.

29 minutes ago, Jack_Sawyer said:

I reckon it takes practice. I love doing this in the PMDG 737’s and 777’s. Just like any small plane all I do is tune an active ILS and shoot approaches. It’s very relaxing for me.

It's a good point.  I've been mentally over-complicating it.  I suppose I was thinking that I would need to spawn 20 or so miles away and get a lot of settings rapidly back into place before reaching localiser territory.  But, if I think about it, most of that stuff is irrelevant and, theoretically, I should be able to simply spawn at a given height and turn on the autopilot in heading mode.  I've already linked a twist knob on my Hotas to the Heading bug. 

Yes - it's a good thought.  If I go to a simple 'set the ILS frequency and turn on autopilot heading mode', then I can just circle round trying different ILS sequences (I gather that the FSS model is sometimes a little bit choosey!) until I find a sequence that works.  And then, once I've sorted that, I can link the two learnings of 'Dark and cold to localiser capture' to 'localiser capture and ILS capture' together and complete a full flight!!   

Many thanks for helping me to sort out my brain fog!  

Edited March 16Mar 16 by AJZip2

6 minutes ago, AJZip2 said:

It's a good point.  I've been mentally over-complicating it.  I suppose I was thinking that I would need to spawn 20 or so miles away and get a lot of settings rapidly back into place before reaching localiser territory.  But, if I think about it, most of that stuff is irrelevant and, theoretically, I should be able to simply spawn at a given height and turn on the autopilot in heading mode.  I've already linked a twist knob on my Hotas to the Heading bug. 

Yes - it's a good thought.  If I go to a simple 'set the ILS frequency and turn on autopilot heading mode', then I can just circle round trying different ILS sequences (I gather that the FSS model is sometimes a little bit choosey!) until I find a sequence that works.  And then, once I've sorted that, I can link the two learnings of 'Dark and cold to localiser capture' to 'localiser capture and ILS capture' together and complete a full flight!!   

Many thanks for helping me to sort out my brain fog!  

Enjoy 

5 hours ago, Jack_Sawyer said:

Enjoy 

Got it!  

It took two go-arounds but I finally worked out how the Nav and Hdg interact in the FSS 727! 

So, after the final CIV-A INS waypoint, I switched to Nav/Loc but then guided the aircraft with the heading bug - not the 'Turn' knob - to bring the Localiser circles from either side to the middle.  As soon as the Localiser dot got close to the middle position the Nav/Loc took over for direction and the Nav/Loc light lit up green and the aircraft held course.   Then once the ILS was intercepted, the autopilot knob could be turned from Nav/Loc to Auto G/S and it then followed both the localiser and the glide slope down to the runway.

It is, sort of, standard stuff, but it is the interaction - and interference between - the different systems that was different.  I have a sneaky feeling that the 'Turn' knob rather than heading bugs is a better way of doing stuff but, in the absence of being able to assign a hotas knob, I found it too clumsy a way of trying to steer the aircraft.

So I will try one more 'go around' flight to confirm that I can replicate this and then, fingers crossed, try a full cold and dark flight start, all the way to landing and final taxi.  And that one I will video to then be able to take some screen shots, like the 777 ones above, which I will post in a new thread here 👍

   

Why is it important to assign turning the knob to a Hotas? I just use the mouse to turn knobs. Are you building a home cockpit or are in VR?

2 hours ago, Jack_Sawyer said:

Why is it important to assign turning the knob to a Hotas? I just use the mouse to turn knobs. Are you building a home cockpit or are in VR?

I'm in VR, but actually that would normally not be a problem.  The actual issue is that the large 'Turn' knob is very, very slow to respond to the mouse and it is not self-centering.  Also, my normal 'legacy' curved arrow - which I use for all other twisty knobs in the cockpit - where you can select the correct direction and then hold the LH mouse button to rotate - doesn't work on the Turn knob.  As such you have to hover over it and use the mouse scroll wheel.  It is very slow to turn and scroll back to neutral and makes turns very difficult to do accurately.   

12 minutes ago, AJZip2 said:

I'm in VR, but actually that would normally not be a problem.  The actual issue is that the large 'Turn' knob is very, very slow to respond to the mouse and it is not self-centering.  Also, my normal 'legacy' curved arrow - which I use for all other twisty knobs in the cockpit - where you can select the correct direction and then hold the LH mouse button to rotate - doesn't work on the Turn knob.  As such you have to hover over it and use the mouse scroll wheel.  It is very slow to turn and scroll back to neutral and makes turns very difficult to do accurately.   

I see. I used to work cockpit avionics on these jets. It was just the way it is, if it takes a while to turn then it takes a while. Maybe the dev can speed up the knob?

  I've spent a complete week of free time and I cannot get the FSS 727 to capture the localiser  (the green panel light says it's captured but it is flying parallel to the runway around 1/2 mile to the left or right and the indicators on the artificial horizon ball don't show capture at all.  Followed all the tips and tricks from various videos; tried a number of the different ways on those vids but get differing results; no response from FSS at all on my Discord ticket; etc etc..   And the failures aren't always the same, even when my procedures are. Pity - in all other respects I love this aircraft but to lose, probably 30 hours of, precious spare time and for it always to fail at the very last 10 minutes - time to move on.