FrankG2625

Which is exactly what you said, almost word for word, in the other thread. And instead of heeding our advice to not place opinion as fact, you post it yet again. Add me to those who are going to put you on ignored users.

TOPCAT doesn't apply winds aloft, so that might be skewing your results. Also remember that the FMC also doesn't take into account winds aloft by default. If you're flying from say, KBOS to EGLL, you'll probably get an insufficient fuel warning at takeoff, and the remaining fuel will increase as you cross the Atlantic, since you have a tailwind. By the time you land, you should be well within your reserves.Your numbers look a little low for a 1.5 - 2 hour trip, off the top of my head with 60 min reserve at 24,000 lbs/hr, you're looking at around 72 - 75000 lbs total fuel. Also, the 744 can easily climb to the FL370/380 region at those loads, and a lower altitude increases fuel burn. Maybe try a direct climb to FL370 to save some gas?As for the TTE, in my experience it occurs at around 53000kgs (117000lbs), so you would set the fuel system to TTE during the startup procedure. (Correct me if I'm wrong, but that seems the most logical way to do it). Which should incidentally also not prompt a TTE message. Frank

Neither, might I add, do you, and signing your full name is in the forum rules. You're just completely disregarding the forum rules, so don't be surprised when you get told to shove it. ;)

Is it possible your CMOS battery is fried? If you can't keep BIOS settings, that might be your problem? Try replacing the battery (it's round and small, like a watch battery), and see if that helps. The CMOS battery looks like this: http://pctechnotes.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/remove-battery.jpg As for partitioning the drive, it shouldn't be too much of a problem, but I recommend you keep Windows and FSX on the same partition, just to be safe. Frank

8-fold. 2*2*2 = 8, not 3.

The problem isn't so much that you have an opinion, the problem is you're trying to pass it off as fact and not listening to reason as to why it's NOT fact.

I'm already getting my tinfoil hat.

IIRC you need to input the GPS position twice... it has something to do with the first time isn't recognised or something? Anyway, after I input the values a first time, I hear a chime and a scratchpad message: INSERT IRS POSITION. Then I re-select the GPS position, and re-input the position in the IRS position thing, overtop the position already loaded. Not doing this also "hung" the IRS for me a few times, where the countdown would be wayyyyy past 0 and still no PFD indications. Hope this helps!Regards,Frank

Back on topic: that AAL is getting both B and A is a huge step forward for them, and a rude wake-up call for Boeing. If Airbus hadn't snagged such a large order from a hereforeto Boeing-only customer, they wouldn't even have considered a 737RE. Of course, the other reason that AAL split the order is that they want to get rid of the old MDs, and needed a huge order, but there wasn't one manufacturer that could deliver them all in a decent time frame. As it stands they've tied up the production lines for both companies until 2018 (presumably, if B does officially green-light the 737RE), which will lead to interesting decisions from other major carriers with regards to, say, Fokker replacements, or what have you.

IIRC the -900ER has the SFP as standard equipment. Don't know about the -900 though. See, in all the Need for Speed games, they spat out a bunch of mumbo-jumbo about less = more grip and more = more speed or whatever, and never gave you an explanation as to what was happening. I was always fiddling with the settings and it almost never worked out. Thanks for the explanation I can follow!Frank

Windmills or windturbines? There's a difference. In Delft we have 1 windmill and a few windturbines around the Technische Universiteit.

It doesn't. It's similar to idling in a car if a jet engine does it. No energy is being produced to move the plane forward.Windmills in and of themselves use a series of gears and levers to do the work they were designed to do (pump water, mill wheat, etc.). It's a relatively simple mechanical system, but is prone to breakdowns.

Just a question that's been bouncing around my head for a little time now: how much of the dev-team could realistically be certified for the real thing in the time frame of a week? You guys have been in the NG cockpit for photos, measurements, etc, and you have a partnership with Boeing, AND on top of all of that you have programmed all the functions of the real thing. You know the aircraft so well at this point, in terms of theory I don't think it would take much for you guys to get type-rated in the NG. Or am I completely misguided?

Problem is that Topcat doesn't take into account winds aloft (if you fly with those). Try FSBuild, but remember that it has about 5t extra planned per default, and that fuel consumption is lower because it plans at mach .86, and normal cruise isn't at .86. Subract about 6 or 7t and you'll have a good estimate from FSBuild.

Did you also input the position on the FMC? The IRS alignment will "hold" until the position is (manually) updated on the FMC. It may be the case that you need to input it twice if the FMC gives the "error" input IRS alignment.I set my IRSes to NAV, then immediately input position on the FMC. That way, when the countdown timer on the EICAS reaches 0, the nav displays et al automatically pop up. AFAIK that's how you're supposed to do it.

Okay, the "technical" explanation:The drag force acting on an aircraft can be expressed via the equation Fd = .5 * rho * V² * A * Cd, where rho is air density (in kilograms per metre cubed), V is the velocity (in metres per second), A is the cross-sectional area the drag acts on (in square metres), and Cd is the coefficient of drag (varies according to aircraft and has no units). Keeping in mind the equations of steady, unaccelerated flight (Thrust = Drag, Lift = Weight), it follows that for cruising flight, thrust must equal the force of drag. Since T = D, and drag can also be expressed as D = .5 * rho * V² * A * Cd. Since lift must equal weight, and the equation of lift is .5 * rho * V² * S * Cl (rho = air density, V = velocity, S = wing area, and Cl is the lift coefficient), weight must also equal .5 * rho * V² * S * Cl. If you then divide thrust by weight, you get Cl/Cd, which is essentially lift over drag. If you continue the algebra, the thrust required is equal to weight times drag all divided by lift. This, however, only gives you thrust required as a function of velocity.So going further, and extrapolating to include the height: the power required for an aircraft to stay in straight and level flight is equal to the force of drag times a factor of veloctiy, thus P = .5 * rho * V³ * A * Cd. The velocity at sea level in terms of weight can be expressed as sqrt((2 * weight)/(rho0 * S * Cl) or the square root of two times weight divided by the density of air at sea level times the area of the wing time the coefficient of lift. If we're assuming the coefficients of lift and drag remain constant, and the only variables which change are the density and the velocity, power required for straight and level flight at altitude becomes power required at sea level times (in parentheses) the square root of density at sea level divded by density at altitude. If you were to plot this, you would see that at sea level, for a given altitude, the power required is generally higher than that at a given altitude. Because there is less power required because of decreased drag etc. the thrust to achieve the required power is less. Therefore, less fuel is needed to maintain the forces of flight.The "simple" explanation:Drag is equal to thrust in cruise flight, and since air density decreases as you get higher, and since drag is proportional to both velocity and air density, it means as the air density becomes lower, but the velocity becomes"slightly" higher as you increase altitude, the overal drag force decreases as you climb. Since you're not constantly accelerating as you climb higher (per se, at least), the assumption can be made that the velocity INCREASE is proportionally less than the air density DECREASE, which in turn leads to the above statement. Since the thrust is equal to the drag, and the net force must equal 0 (i.e., the drag equals the thrust, since the forces are applied in opposite directions), the thrust also decreases as the drag decreases. This means that your velocity may slightly increase, but that your drag still decreases, that less thrust is required and thus that your fuel consumption is lowered for the velocity at which you are flying.Quick case and point for the proportionality of velocity increase and air density decrease: you are flying at around 320ktas when you transition from <250KIAS to >250KIAS (i.e. the airspeed transition at 10,000 feet). Your TAS at cruise is generally around 480. The proportion here is 1.5. The air density at 10,000 feet is about .90 kg/m³, and at FL350 about .36 kg/m³ or a proportion of 2.5. Since D = T = constant * rho * V² * constant * constant and rho is decreasing with a linear factor -2.5 (or increasing at a linear factor 0.4), V² increase at a linear factor 2.25, which results in a net decrease (i.e., factor less than 1 -- 0.9 to be exact).To the other guys, jet engines aren't more efficient at higher altitudes, they just need to do less work to provide the same force to overcome drag.References: Introduction to Flight by John Anderson, and Elements of airplane performance by Ger Ruijghok.Also, this is the quick crash-course version. I could get a lot more technical, but I'll spare you. If you're interested, you can always PM me.[EDIT] That last line came out wrong... I don't mean to come over as arrogant, but that's exactly how I sound now that I reread it. Sorry about that. ;)

Inherently, no. It's not modelled because it can't be done to a high degree of accuracy. I think there are addons to add this (reality XP?) but I'm not too sure about them being avaiable for the PMDG 747...

Getting in to the "little planes" like the 737 is far and away not as trivial as you make it sound. There are people who work their whole lives to get to a 737, let stand a 747. I wish you the best of luck, but it might help to be a bit more realistic.

It almost sounds like your running out of memory. Are you doing these flights with a period of computer "off-time" (i.e. your computer is off) between flights, or one after another? It might be worth it to upgrade your RAM, and increase your virtual memory. How much RAM do you have and how much virtual memory? You have a LOT of addons, so a good amount of RAM is required (I'd give it a ballpark figure of 4+ GB, with 4 being the absolute minimum).EDIT: Smart Assembly is Java ERROR REPORTING by the way... Try this if all else fails: http://www.addictivetips.com/windows-tips/how-to-disable-error-reporting-in-windows-7/

Speak for yourself. I refuse to switch to FSX until I have the cash for a computer that can run it at full autogen with full weather, traffic, and the PMDG 747X thrown in. Seeing as in FS9 I can do REX, PMDG, FSDT, and SB4 on my laptop (2.53GHz C2D, 9800M GT, 4GB, etc.) and FSX doesn't perform ANYWHERE close to FS9, I'll stick with FS9, thanks.

If your connection speed is really 10Gbps then it's not a problem... I have 10Mbps and it works fine... Are you sure it's gigabits? You realise with 10Gbps you can download at 1.3 Gigabytes per second. That's a full DVD in about 6 seconds. Wow...

Translated it for you guys. ;) :(

Maybe slightly off topic, but how do you pronounce 'Eyjafjallajökull'? Everyone just called it the "Icelandic Volcano,"but I'm assuming there's a proper way to pronounce it. Something along the lines of: eh-ya-fya-lah-juh-kuhl?