skelsey

At the very least you really need to fill out INIT A (departure and arrival, flight number, cruise level) select the runway for departure and arrival on the F-PLN page (no need to select a procedure), weights and V-speeds on the PERF page (can be auto-calculated) and ideally fill out the PERF APPR page (QNH/temp/wind) as this will let the aeroplane calculate the appropriate characteristic speeds for you. So if you were doing circuits at Chateauroux, for example, you would just enter LFLX/LFLX in the dep/arr fields, bung in a flight number and a cruise level of, say, 2000ft, then go to F-PLN, select the departure runway, go back to F-PLN and select the same runway for arrival. Leave the discontinuities in, then go to the PERF page, put in a flap setting and let it auto-calculate the V speeds and flex temperature. Finally you can page across to the PERF APPR page and enter the current QNH, temperature and surface wind. Looks a lot written down but in reality only really takes a few seconds!

As Dan says, the PMDG 777 is the -200LR. A very, very different beast to the straight -200, which appears to be what the Topcat profile is for. Edit: just to add, for context: the straight -200s have an MTOW over 100t less than the LR and about 4,500nm less range.

As Kyle says, I very much doubt that your problems have anything to do with the temperature or Activesky. Let's sanity check that for a moment -- 35C is a fairly typical daytime temperature in Florida (and indeed might even be considered fairly mild in some places). At a lapse rate of around 2C per 1000ft, an OAT of 12C at 7000ft is actually quite cool if the temperature on the ground is 35C. Aeroplanes take off and climb to cruising levels quite comfortably every day from airports where the temperature is 35+C. A TAT of +35C at FL350 would be a problem, but this does not appear to be the case here. Therefore, the problem probably lies elsewhere -- my first suspicion is the same as Kyle's, if your flaps are assigned to a hardware axis this is known to cause problems.

Of course. Mea culpa! There is no climb required at CRVET as far as I can see. You could be quite happily cruising along over SAV and CHECR at FL350 -- the only requirement is to start a descent to cross CRVET between FL240 and FL290. I would guess that there is an alternative STAR for traffic cruising below FL240, but I stand to be corrected.

I don't use the FAA charts routinely, but assuming the conventions are similar to the presentation on the Lido charts I am more familiar with: FL190 and FL180 (etc) noted next to the route line are not altitude restrictions (as such), they are MEAs (Minimum Enroute Altitudes). In other words, you can't fly the segment between SAV and CHECR at any less than FL190. *1700 and *1600 are MSAs (minimum safe altitudes) for the route segments. MEA is usually driven by navigational concerns (navaid reception, airspace etc) whereas MSA is usually a terrain/obstacle issue. Normally you would be a long way above the minimum altitudes -- they are there for emergency use.

"Go around, flap 20." :wink:

Errm.... don't press all the way down on the pedals? What would happen if you stood on the brakes in your car as hard as you could at high speed? You're locking the wheels and blowing the tyres/overheating the brakes and causing the tyre fuse plugs to melt. Either way, you're not going to go anywhere fast afterwards.

Russia does use metres QFE below TA, but will provide QNH on request and whilst I can't speak for Flydubai, at a Big Airline QFE operations are verboten so it is normal to request and set the QNH (heights will still be given in metres QFE by the controller but the approach chart includes a metres QFE --> feet QNH conversion table). That said, it would be much easier if the Russians would come in to line with the rest of the world, and I suspect as time moves on they will move in that direction: my understanding is that the current situation (also in China with metric) is due to the fact that many older Russian-manufactured aircraft, and particularly military aircraft, are simply not equipped with altimeters calibrated in feet and so the system exists to cater for them. With more Western aircraft being operated by Russian operators, and Russian manufacturers designing aircraft for a global market, I imagine the situation will change sooner or later.

The pressure changes (decreases) with altitude -- this is how an altimeter works, by measuring the actual pressure and comparing it to the datum set in the window. This works because the pressure reduces at a variable with altitude, but known rate -- at sea level, 1hPa = approximately 30ft (actually about 27, but it changes with height and 30 is close enough for flight deck work and a nice round number to do mental maths with). So you can express an altitude either in terms of feet, or in terms of the ISA air pressure at that level (so, for example, the air pressure at 10,000ft is 700hPa according to the ISA and you will sometimes see weather charts that express altitude in terms of pressure (hPa) rather than units of length (feet)). Thus, a change in height of 346ft is equal to a change in pressure of 13hPa (346/27 = 12.8). This is particularly useful to a pilot who wants to set QFE on the altimeter for landing: the QFE is the QNH adjusted for the elevation of the threshold. So if the QNH is 1013hPa, setting 1000hPa (1013 - 13) will make the altimeter display height above the threshold during the approach and landing. Displaying the threshold elevation in terms of hPa on the chart does 50% of the sums for the pilot, so all they have to do is take that value and subtract it from the QNH. QFE is hardly ever used in modern commercial transport operations (FMS systems are normally designed with QNH in mind and setting QFE confuses them), but GA and the military (read: RAF) use it extensively as many of their procedures are based on height, not altitude.

Depends where you fly in to... there are some parts of the world where ATC just loves to keep you high (Italy, for example, is notorious for it), either because of airspace restrictions, terrain, other traffic flows or various other reasons. In other places you might get offered a big shortcut if you can make the profile work (Heathrow, for example, will occasionally offer a very direct routing perhaps from some way prior to the holding fix if it's quiet and the result is usually a high speed descent with lots of speedbrake), but it will be on the basis of mutual agreement. In the UK you will be given your track miles to touchdown at the start of vectoring to final approach so you can judge your rate of descent (ideally to achieve a continuous descent from that point, i.e. avoiding level flight all the way up to glideslope capture and beyond). Generally speaking though, as Dan says, most controllers have a reasonable idea of aircraft performance and will know more or less what is and isn't typically achievable -- bear in mind that they'll generally be working the same sector very regularly if not every day and they will know the points where pilots usually want to start down, how fast they can descend and the normal vectoring profile will have been constructed with typical performance capabilities in mind.

Hmm. Perhaps it might be worth assigning the brakes directly in FSX then, if that is the case, unless anybody can think of a workaround...?

It was back, but it's gone back down again -- there were still some issues with the forum and schedule database, so I assume the tech team are in the process of fixing it (which may be why it's down again). I'll see if I can find out any more. Sorry guys!

Not using pedals, but a spare axis (throttle on my Sidewinder Pro as I am using the Saitek TQ for the thrust levers). Make sure that you are not 'processing' the axes in FSUIPC -- i.e. assign LeftBrake and RightBrake, then go to the Joystick Calibration tab and click the "Reset" button on both left and right so that it says "Axis not processed". You should then find that it works correctly, I think.

Just to update you -- the Tech team are on it and it should be fixed shortly.

No problem!

B77L B77W. http://www.icao.int/publications/DOC8643/Pages/Search.aspx

Seems to be down here too. I'll see if the boss or one of the tech team are about to give it a kick...

I've not tried it but I'm sure if it works in the particular MSN they have modelled it will work -- however, it's non-functional in many real A320s and I think the more recent ones don't have it at all. I think it led to a few low-speed events IRL and a lot of airlines got a bit leery about its use.

Actually (in the UK at least) in real life it is VERY rare to fly the full SID. You will almost always get put on a heading very soon after departure. This is because there is a lot of interaction between the SID routes from each airport and the arrival streams, and the easiest and quickest way to climb the outbounds is usually to put them on a radar heading and sort the situation out tactically. Arrivals are more likely to go all the way to the IAF on the STAR but even then if it's quiet you might be vectored early to give you a shortcut. Even enroute it's not uncommon for aircraft to be put on headings for streaming and separation. In a nutshell -- the controllers are doing what controllers do, both in real life and on VATSIM -- separating the traffic and helping to provide an efficient flight. The SIDs and STARs are standard routes and in theory if there was a mass comms blackout they should keep everything separated if everybody adheres to them, but they are not necessarily the most efficient way of getting everybody in and out.

Without being privy to the exact details, I suspect this is almost certainly why they are selling through Esellerate rather than their own website -- so that Esellerate can handle the tax issues. The EU ruling regarding tax on online purchases was a major pain in the neck for small online retailers for exactly this reason -- they would either have to develop a sales front end that automatically calculated the correct tax and then deal with forwarding it on to the relevant government, or outsource the sales process to a big player like Esellerate to handle it for them (=cost), or block purchases from other countries somehow.

FSL Spotlights is a small, free download - you just have to install it. Yes, it is required.

In Europe, at least, this is due to a decision made by the EU parliament fairly recently (last couple of years) which determined that VAT for online purchases had to be paid at the rate applicable to the buyer rather than to the seller (because fundamentally VAT is a consumer tax -- the business simply passes it straight on to the tax man). In the past you might have purchased from online vendors who listed inc-VAT prices and simply passed on the VAT in their own locale. They're not allowed/supposed to do that any more. To be fair... I don't know about the rest of Europe, but in the UK at least you only generally see ex-VAT price labelling in wholesalers/places frequented by business customers (who would claim back the VAT if purchasing for business purposes). In the vast majority of shops, prices are typically labelled inclusive of VAT. In that sense, certainly in the bricks-and-mortar world VAT is very transparent to the buyer, so I can understand how someone used to that form of labelling (and thus not used to considering the effect of VAT on the price) might be surprised. I guess, however, it will become more normal as we get more used to online vendors pricing in this way.

Hi David, As Mike has mentioned -- did you contact Ian or Antony in HR? We are normally more than happy to protect people's accounts in situations like this, and we do on a regular basis. But if we don't know we can't help!

PFPX is quite capable of generating a CFMU -validated, wind-optimised route -- isn't that what you paid the money for? If all you are going to do with it is paste in a plan from Flightaware or Online Route Planner then to be honest you might as well have saved your money and just used Simbrief... Of course, the automated generator is far from perfect -- but by using the various options provided you can generally get a route to validate after two or three passes. There's a tutorial on the PFPX forum, but in essence you just go in to the "avoid" options and tell it not to route via the offending airway/waypoint etc. It may take a few goes as the new route may have its own problems, but as I say, generally after a couple of passes you can get a route to pass validation quite comfortably (and quickly, once you get the hang of it). Like any planner you do have to sanity check the routes and at present AFAIK it just selects SID/STARs alphabetically (which can lead to some issues at some airports) but if you just take a second to check the departure/arrival against the airport charts it's easily changed.

No. The aeroplane flies because airflow over the wings generates lift. Whether you generate this airflow by blowing air over the wings of a stationary aircraft or by accelerating the aircraft through the airmass makes no difference. Take a light aircraft like a C172 which will typically get airborne at around 60kts on takeoff. Park it facing in to a 40kt wind, and the aeroplane will be about to get airborne (and, in fact, they sometimes do). By the same token, if you are sitting at the start of the runway with a 40kt headwind, you will already have 40kt worth of airflow passing over the wings. When you release the brakes and accelerate, you now only need to add, say, another 20kts of forward speed to total 60kts of airflow over the wings and you're airborne. Now reverse the situation -- if you have a 40kt tailwind, you need to accelerate the aeroplane to 40kt over the ground just to match the speed of the tailwind and bring the airflow over the wings to a standstill. Having accelerated to 40kt along the ground, you now need another 60kt in order to to get the airflow you need over the wings. When you are landing, landing in to a headwind reduces your ground speed and therefore the amount of energy the brakes must absorb in order to bring the aeroplane to a standstill, thus reducing the landing run.