davidz

No need to ever touch the A/T Arm switch in-flight in the 777 in normal ops. If you want manual control of the power, you press the disconnect switches on the throttle. Like other modern Big Boeings, the A/T Arm switch is not held in place by a solenoid like the 737CL and 737NG.

Do a barrel roll! :lol:

Boeing include detailed performance tables and charts in the Flight Planning and Performance Manual (FPPM). These include sufficient information to perform take-off performance analysis for a range of conditions. Historically, PMDG have not published this information. However, the Flight Crew Operations Manual (FCOM) contains a subset of these tables and charts. The Boeing 777 FCOM contains tables for Flap 15 no derate take-off for both dry and wet runways. With the tables, you can determine field, climb, obstacle and tire speed weight limits for the ambient conditions. You can also work backwards to solve for the maximum temperature in which you can safety perform the take-off (this is your assumed temperature when applying the assumed temperature method). It is highly likely that PMDG will include a copy of the Boeing FCOM with the product. If you have TOPCAT, I would recommend using that - there are 4 limit states that you must satisfy if calculating the take-off solution by hand...

The flight number sold to the travelling public doesn't have to be used as part of the ATC Flight Number Callsign at all. In fact, you will find that in Europe, most flights use a completely different number (that may also include letters). For example, LH123 might use DLH12G for ATC purposes. This is an initiative between airlines and ANSPs to reduce the incidence of similar callsigns (both aurally and visually) to reduce the possibility of callsign confusion.

Nor does the real 200LR

After a video is uploaded, YouTube converts it into 360p, 480p, 720p, etc. resolutions in the appropriate format. This takes some time and if you watch a video too soon after it's uploaded, you won't be able to watch it in 720/1080 loveliness.

Personally, I'd much prefer paper charts or a tablet. Nothing worse than having to pan/zoom while on instruments for those of us without TrackIR. A quick glance down at the iPad sitting on top of the yoke mount beats an in-game EFB any day

You do realise that you can adjust the volumes in the CDU right?

Interestingly, I get almost no hit while using FRAPS... absolutely magic compared to Camtasia. Makes sense of course: Camtasia appears to be doing the recording on the software layer whereas FRAPS goes a further back towards the hardware (hence why it only captures one application at a time and doesn't work with some programs). This has been around since the original PMDG 747-400 and probably the old NG as well (haven't touched that one in a few years). It's probably safe to say that it will be included - of course, you have to manually plug in the values yourself; there is no company downlink!

Under radar coverage, you normally won't get a limit for your deviation (controller can monitor your progress and separate based on that). However, under non-radar RNP airspace, the controller will almost always use a lateral limit to the deviation (e.g. deviate up to 30 miles left and right of track). This is because the controller must still achieve standard separation while you are deviating from track. Sometimes it is not possible to grant a sufficient deviation while still maintaining separation; interestingly, in this situation, the controller must advise "unable due traffic; advise intentions" and at this point, the onus is on the PIC to declare an emergency to deviate around the weather (perfectly acceptable and normal practice) and the controller issues traffic information.

Oh those, we still have them :biggrin: Okay, not quite, but we certainly have non-radar approach control and public transport jets flying into uncontrolled ports (meaning Class G - IFRs only get traffic info with regard to each other).

Thanks for the response, Ryan. Great to hear that this is in the horizon. Keep up the good work!

Good old-fashioned looking out the window

That's a fair analysis, Kyle, but keep in mind that even when you're using STARs that join the IAF, you are still free to take aircraft off the STAR - it's still not a walk in the park for the Approach guys. To be fair, you won't see this a lot in somewhere like Australia, but definitely in places like Europe and the Middle East, the Approach controllers are still doing significant work to fine tune the spacing down the minimum. To this effort, you see two paradigms for STAR design that the Europeans/Middle Easterns are playing with. First is the Point Merge System that Oslo and Dublin are now using; second is the trombone pattern you see at many German ports and in Dubai. There is still a need to meter traffic because there is no point stuffing the TMA full of aircraft - this just raises the workload for no reason because now you are getting the Approach controllers to try and implement a lot of the delaying action when it could have been done upstream. However, once in the TMA, the controllers can now arrange the aircraft so that they are at minimum sep. Another thing to keep in mind that when you set up your metering programs, you aren't trying to preprogram separation - that will kill your operation. The guys that do this every day have an idea of how many aircraft you can land per hour in given runway config/weather conditions and the idea is to set your acceptance rate very near to the limit for those conditions, because at the end of the day, your capacity is physically limited and there is no point trying to exceed those physical limits. Of course, you guys in the US have some special rules that do help push those physical limits a bit Btw, Rob has seen a bit more traffic than what Sunshine Coast gets... I hear the Middle East is rather popular for air travel these days.

Make an idiot-proof system and they'll build a better idiot... :lol:

It's a bit different - the most obvious difference is that you will respawn in the new position with the exact same amount of fuel you had before the shift.

I wouldn't agree that it's due to traffic volume and fleet mix that major US airports don't utilize RNAV STARs to the IAF. Look at the technology that controllers are having to use to manage the traffic - in other places, aircraft are sequenced well prior to arrival (Australia and Europe are examples where aircraft are often sequenced before they leave the ground) and delaying action is taken well before the TMA. This allows aircraft to enter the TMA with sufficient spacing for Approach controllers to make final adjustments to the spacing with speed control and minor track adjustments. Traffic mix is not necessarily a barrier to using RNAV STARs to the IAF. The best solution is probably segregation of routes and possibly even segregation of runway usage (if possible - perhaps this is even more feasible in the US where there is a higher percentage of non-jet public transport aircraft as well as more runways available at many ports). Non-similar types can be merged at a late stage (e.g. IAF or a little bit before) with the merge planned well in advance with the automated sequencing tools, supplemented by speed control and minor track adjustments by the Approach controllers. Possibly the other complexity that the US faces in many TMAs is the number of significant aerodromes in the one TMA (NY and SOCAL are probably the most obvious examples). However, the STARs can be designed to route aircraft via existing vectored paths and also build in vertical separation at crossing points.

The long trombone section is for ATC sequencing purposes. Once they have achieve the correct spacing between you and the preceding aircraft, they will clear you direct to an appropriate point (e.g. one of the points on extended final). If you are flying by yourself, you should definitely cut the STAR as soon as you can because the rest of it is a waste of time. You will notice that on most of these STARs, there is an "at or below" restriction - this is to ensure that you won't be hugely high on profile when ATC give you the shortcut.

You can arm LNAV and VNAV in both the 777 and in the later FMC revisions for the NG (including the revision modelled in the NGX). Activation occurs at 50 FT RA for LNAV and 400 FT RA for VNAV. Usage of the Flight Director in the NG and 777 is similar: switch goes on during the preflight flows switch goes off during the shutdown flows when intentionally deviating from flight director indicates (e.g. visual approach or visual circling), in the NG, you recycle the switch to clear the bars; in the 777, the switch simply goes off because recycling will give you HDG/TRK HOLD and VNAV ALT. In both aircraft, pressing a TO/GA switch will bring up the flight director bars in TO/GA TO/GA regardless of the flight director switch position.

However, NAT can also stand for "North Atlantic" As in, the Europe/North Atlantic (EUR/NAT) Office of the ICAO

Indeed if you engage the autopilot without the flight directors on, the AFDS will revert to CWS R and CWS P. However, you should then be able to engage any of the regular modes without the flight director switch in the on position or the flight director bars displayed. The only exception to this is if you press the TO/GA switch which will always bring up the flight director bars.

No need - Boeings switch over automatically and even have hysteresis built in to stop it flip-flopping between the two.

More likely because of an FSX feature! Magnetic variation gradients are high near the poles and magnetic compasses/magnetic north systems tend not to work very well.

Off topic, but there is a team working on that very task already and from my understanding, they have made a decent amount of progress given that they only started writing code a few months ago.

RNP and RNP-AR don't relate to whether the approach uses RF legs. The "AR" stands for "Authorization Required" - these approaches require specific approval (approval for each approach) from the regulator, rather than a general approval. Indeed there are RNP-AR approaches being flown by Qantas and Jetstar which are simply a straight line.