Hey Jan.What do you fly?

Fabio,Piper Archer III, Cherokee VI and Cessna 152/172.Aerobatics on the Fuji; Did also one hour Texan in Kissimmee (museum!)Sometimes twin on Piper Chieftain, Seneca and Seminole.Logged also one hour nightflying on the 747-200 with a captain/flyingclub member; KATL-EHAM, FL350 with the Aurora Borealis on the port-side.(NB, just checked my logbook because of today's afternoon flying)In my 767-300 now enroute LFPG-KLAX to test my FMC.Jan"Procul Negotiis"

Hey Jan.Great stuff man! I bet the Texan flight was incredible. I love the roar of that radial!I too have some time in the Seminole. Funny little aircraft, good to learn multiengine flying.Most of my hours are in my Dad's Long EZ, which unfortunatelly is in Brasil, while I am here in the US. But before I came I managed to save enough money to travel around Brasil, and acquire about 150 hours on it. Great little craft, very capable (flies faster than a C172 on a 115hp engine).Oh, and that 742 flight must have been fantastic, huh?How is the FMS coming along?

Fabio,About the FMS/CDU i can say, it is an enormous lot of work!With the help and advices of the people here in the forum the following is now possible:1. Artwork no problemo, just a pic of a Boeing CDU and futher i use only and an enormous lot of .2. There are now 30 "screens", but for good function i need a whole lot less, the rest is only eye-candy.3. i have tested 3 flightplans and they work ok in conjunction with the LNAV and VNAV switches on the MCP (reprogramming autopilot is tough too).4. So flying from A to B with SID, Waypoints, STAR and Approach works 90% now, setting the radios automatically, while speed and altitude are controlled by weight, fuel-burn, ground elevation, weather, sunelevation etc..5. The obvious setback is the fact, that you have to calculate everything in the flightplan yourself because writing/typing in the "Scratchpad" in xml is not possible. I use MS Excel to calculate the coordinates.So the goal is to make it working 100% and then make a lot of flightplans to load in the FMC.Jan"Procul Negotiis"

Very cool stuff, Jan.Where are you getting the database from for the SIDs and STARs?And by calculate yourself, do you mean distance and bearing between waypoints? And why isn't that possible in XML? Excuse my ignorance.

Fabio,I have some "plates" from my flying club and the ones published in the Dutch AIP.Am not so interested in the real live stuff; make them myself.It is not my goal to make a database of all those SID's etc.I only use the coordinates of Airways, Ints, NDB's and VOR's to calculate the Waypoints with MS Excel before putting them in the "flightplan".The FP is in xml, which can be loaded in the FMS.Radio's,Distances and Bearings, AP Heading Bug, Flightlevel/altitude and Speed/Mach in the FP are set automatically thanks to the great circle calculations (see other discussions in the forum).So it is possible now to "Press the buttons after TO and disconnect before touchdown (Cat I)" from, to and via any point on Earth.But still a lot of work to do.Jan"Procul Negotiis"