XWRed5

Dear all,Bryan brought this thread to my attention, I'm not an expert in performance but I'll see if I can shed some light on some of the questions asked.And don't forget guys, UTOPIA is just a multi dimensional interpolation machine with a whole bunch of fudge factors for various variables, the fact it's providing derates anywhere near charts is a miracle.The maximum derate (minimum thrust) allowed for takeoff is controlled by a number of things. The main limitation we are seeing here is that take off thrust cannot be less than climb thrust. It would make no sense to take off, reach the acceleration altitude and then increase power to climb away. You can never take off with less than climb power set.I don't know how climb power is calculated but I do know that it increases with pressure altitude. i.e. the higher you go the more thrust climb power will produce.Therefore if the derate limit you are up against is climb power then as you place yourself at airports increasing in altitude then the maximum derate will go down (i.e. produce more thrust) so that at least climb power is always being produced on the take off roll.That is why the aircraft will not let you set a take off derate temperature that would equate to less than climb power.Hope this helps,Ian

One is never too low and/or slow to go around.A go around can be performed right up to the selection of reverse thrust ... and to be honest, there's nothing physically stopping you after then.So to answer your question, go around.Hope this helps,Ian

Hello CJ,My apologies for not spotting your post sooner, I'm not in this part of the forum so much any more. I'm also unsure why the email bounced, I thought it was all set up.I don't have the Wilco 737 so I can't really help but I would be happy to talk you through making your own tod file. It's not quite as complex as it first looks, although it can require an awful lot of take offs.Hope this helps,Ian

Not according to my documentation but I reserve the right to be wrong :( Alternate law feels very similar to normal law, slightly more twitchy in roll but barely noticeable. True, but in the few minutes they had before hitting the deck I can't imagine they would have been overly concerned about recovering the rudder trim. It would have flown just fine without it. Unchanged would be my guess, they've proved (in the hardest and most stressful way possible) that their procedures allow for a double engine failure at low level and low speed over a built up area and everyone still walks off the aircraft alive. Sounds like pretty good procedures to me, I would have thought it would be every other airline that would say "woah! would our procedures result in the same outcome?".QRH and ECAM drills are all well and good but let's not forget they had very limited time, I'm sure they went through some kind of procedure to get things together but the pair of them would have had to make some very difficult decisions very quickly, time was of the essence, they wouldn't have wasted any going through an unwieldy QRH drill or nonsensical ECAM drill. They would have had to prioritise flying the aircraft and ditching safely well before worrying about drills, procedures and backside covering histrionics, they're pilots you know, not politicians :( that's why everyone lived. Normally summed up with that one, oft overlooked little word ... airmanship.Hope this helps,Ian

Not an expert by any means but...When both engines failed the RAT (Ram Air Turbine) would have dropped and after 30 seconds or so started providing hydraulic pressure (to the blue system) and electrical power to the essential buses.Fly-by-wire wise it would have dropped out of normal law and into alternate law (without protections). It would fly very similar, if a little twitchy, to usual. If they had put the gear down it would have gone into Direct law which can be a little unfamiliar but not overly difficult.They would have had control over most of the control surfaces, the only exception being the flaps, they would have had slats only. They wouldn't have had that many spoilers either but it would fly and be controllable.The Airbus uses a mechanical backup for the rudder and trim only, the idea being that you can keep the aircraft flying with those until you can get something else back and get into another law, in this case it was unnecessary.Overall they did a great job, you can't argue with no fatalities. Also goes to show the Airbus is perfectly safe in an emergency situation, FBW Luddites notwithstanding. Also proves that ditching procedures and training are all spot on, text book ditching, aircraft behaved exactly as designed, Crew did everything they were trained to and ... no one died. Gold stars all round then, so hopefully we can get people to shut up and watch the safety demo now ... I live in hope.Hope this helps,Ian

Correct, Angle of Attack (AoA) sensor.Ian

Most modern airliners have a GPS receiver (usually 2) feeding data to the FMC (or FMGC).They are usually used as the primary source of position data. Of course, they are being backed up by the IRS's and being constantly monitored.If your IRS's go and you've no GPS your FMC becomes a giant integrated doorstop with buttons on. In the absence of a valid position feed the FMC is worth zip.Assuming your worst case scenario, one would fall back on radio aids to find the runway. Pilots "know" how to do this because it's part of the training course for the licence.Hope this helps,Ian

Look for the little util to make FS9.exe >2Gb aware.I have to run it in WindowsXP compatibility mode.You may run into a number of issues getting products installed (mostly due to the Vista thing rather than the 64bit thing) but you'll get there in the end.Make sure you've got all your 64bit drivers to hand...Runs like a charm, no OOM errors ever (when I used to a lot).No complaints here.Hope this helps,Ian

I'm not sure, I'm not in front of it either but a quick search in the PMDG forum brought up ...http://forums.avsim.net/dcboard.php?az=sho...28200&mode=fullHope this helps,Ian

Hi Mark,I think the problem may be that you're not turning the autothrottle on.In your list of things you did you said you turned the autothrottle on ... but how? My guess is that you armed it. In the top left hand side of the PFD is the autothrottle status. Check what that says before you takeoff, my guess is that it's either blank or it says ARM (in white). To takeoff you have to push the TO/GA buttons to actually switch the autothrust on. When this happens it should change from ARM to something else (THR?) in green to show the system is now active.After that everything you said should work.Hope this helps,Ian

I learnt to fly in a Socata Ralleye, stall speed down in the 40 something knots.One particularly windy day my instructor and I reversed across Kent.Most surreal....Ian

>Qantas still holds the record as the only major carrier to>never have a fatal. Much as I agree with the other posters on this thread about the media's effect on people's perceptions of airlines safety ... (and to quote my broker) : Past performance is no indication of future returns.Make no mistake, Qantas is no more or less safe than any of the other major US or European carriers, statistics notwithstanding.I believe it was Benjamin Disraeli who said "There are lies, damned lies and statistics".Let's not join the media with our wild hysteria eh?Food for thought,Ian

I'm amazed no one has answered this poor chaps question, especially since it's basic trigonometry....6.4% means you go up 6.4m for every 100m you move along, giving you a right angled triangle.The tan of the angle you are looking for is equal to the opposite over adjacent, i.e. 6.4/100. The arc tan of this will give you that angle.I make it 3.661935576degs, or 3.7degs for government work.As previous posters have already mentioned, that's a minimum gradient and I wouldn't recommend you fly at exactly that, you'll get quite close to the ground.Also as previously mentioned, 3degs is about half your ground speed times 10, e.g. @140kts 3degs is approx 700fpm.I would suggest that you simply set climb power and maintain V2 + whatever increment you deem appropriate (10 or 15 is common) until about 1000ft above the airfield, then start accelerating and cleaning up. That would see you safe just fine.Hope this helps,Ian

Cabin alt is the pressure altitude of the cabin at the moment.Landing alt is used by the automatic pressurisation system to ensure the cabin is pressurised to the airfield elevation at the point of landing. i.e. there are no unpleasant pressurisation fluctuations when the outlet valve is driven open after landing.The landing alt is an input field, set by the pilots sometime before descent, the cabin alt merely indicates the current alt of the cabin.Hope this helps,Ian

In the real thing you simply enter a new airport pair (EGLL/EHAM for example) in 1R on the INIT page.Don't know if it works in the Wilco version though.Hope this helps,Ian