JCEpiano

The most difficult approach I know is in SFO but it is extremely rare to ever see it in use.A few times a year, the winds will gust from the north, especially in the morning hours. This requires an approach to rwy 28L, and at 4DME, planes circle to land rwy 01R/L. This is extremely difficult for two reasons: as you turn south for the downwind, the space for a full base is almost impossible. You have enough space for a downwind, but will virtually fly a dog leg to final. The second thing that makes it extra dangerous is that as you turn southbound, the terrain becomes higher as you fly further from the airport. This requires very good visibility and it is very hard to do in the virtual flight deck without actual peripheral vision. In the real world, pilots also have to be careful with traffic flying for the parallel runway.Try flying it sometime and see how fun and challenging it is! I'd say I land decently probably 25% of the time. It's so easy to be high on final, too fast on final, and past the centerline. Imagine a LGA expressway visual with pretty high hills before turning final. Scary stuff! Fortunately pilots don't have to fly it that often. I hear from friends who have witnessed this in the RW that it is an extra thrill to see a B747 or B777 do the approach.

Eric, thank you very much for your work. I'll certainly give it a try, although I have already figured something out using coordinates that I will be glad to share if you're interested.Jack, thanks for your two cents as well. In the case of the charted visuals into SFO, they are actually used quite strictly because of the parallel approaches. Most aircraft off the MOD3 arrival stream are often using the FMS Bridge Visual approach which is a fully RNAV approach procedure which only airlines with major operations at SFO utilize. Although the FMS Bridge Visual is a "visual approach," aircraft are required to call the bridge and once they see it, they descend via the approach until they're over the San Mateo bridge and resume a visual approach to the runway. The Tipp Toe works the same, you're expect to call the bridge/airport before menlo, and then are cleared to fly the procedure, which requires you to intercept the localizer for rwy 28L. The reason for this is that SFO is one of the few airports that is allowed to run simultaneous arrivals with runways that are so ridiculously close. Also, the Tipp Toe facilitates traffic flow off of the BSR2 arrival so that controllers don't need to do constant traffic calls to avoid issues. As for my intention in making this request - as you can see, I'm the training administrator for the Oakland ARTCC on Vatsim. Since we have plenty of events that feature SFO, and not that many pilots who can correctly fly the Tipp Toe or the FMS Bridge Visual, I've been working on setting them up so that pilots can easily incorporate them into their FMCs and hand fly the approach once they're on short final. The other reason for going into this is because specifically on the Tipp Toe, the last three fixes of the BSR2 arrival (SKUNK, BOLDR, MENLO) should all fall on the OAK-151. Either because the OAK VOR is totally out of sorts due to some FSX issue or because of some magnetic variation issue, the Navigraph data actually places these fixes slightly west of the OAK-151. It's more like the OAK-153. That's a big difference!! So, if you manually track the OAK-151 after MENLO, the aircraft actually turns to the right to intercept the OAK-151 instead of proceeding straight as it should. This really initiated my work on this project. I hope you can understand. Finally, my interest in the LGA Expressway visual came because of a Youtube video posted by a pilot of the approach where in the comments he clearly states that it was done as a VNAV/LNAV coupled approach. On the video you can even hear the A/P being disengaged once on final. As I said, I suspect that in these more tricky approaches airlines prefer that the FMC fly it correctly rather than the pilot making a mistake because of lack of practice on the approach. Or it may just fundamentally come down to fuel efficiency.

I think specifically in the case of the Expressway visual that the coupled approach avoids pilot error (where it is extraordinarily easy to screw it up) and extra fuel costs do to missed approaches after making the turn to final too late, or being too high.

Hi folks,I've been trying my best to figure this out, with little progress. I've been staring at two visual approaches that I know are often flown as a coupled LNAV/VNAV approach in the real world: KSFO - Tipp Toe Visual Approach rwy 28LKLGA - Expressway Visual Approach rwy 31Both are absolutely easy to fly if you just manually run the nav radios and all, but I do know that in the RW, they are set up by airlines to be flown to final approach by the FMC. I've tried to learn how to program approaches directly into the navigraph data, but have come short on a couple of things.For the SFO Tipp Toe, one is supposed to join the OAK-151 out of MENLO on the BSR2 arrival and proceed to 14 DME and then turn left hdg 310 to join the rwy 28L localizer. I'm sure this can be programmed into an approach in Nav Data, but the problem is that there is no actual fix that one "intercepts" such as any of the fixes on the ILS chart. Another thing I'm trying to understand is when I program the OAK151/14 into the FMC, it actually turns me right away from what should already be the OAK-151 (which you fly the whole way down the BSR2). Is this a magnetic variation or simple FSX error with the VOR's relationship to Nav Data? Thanks for any help!!

I've experienced the same thing. What helped was to click on the FMC in the VC and then close it. After that, the FMC reappears on the captain's side. Any others having this as well?

Hi Folks,I'm just wondering if anyone else has been having issues with the NGX and the REX Weather Engine. I've noticed especially in cloudy/windy situations that the NGX falls into stutters. Also, sometimes the A/T will begin to overcompensate and accelerates the plane way past where the bug setting is. I'm running FSX on a 2008 Macboook Pro with Bootcamp. 2.4 GHZ Intel Core 2 Duo. I haven't had this issue with other aircraft but was curious to see if others have experienced it.Thanks!

Is that in general or when you're on the approach to an airport?

In respects to the original topic being discussed, I'd offer my own strategy with flying. I always take a look at the controllers online (vatview.com) and choose a route based on the available controllers. I personally find it more interesting to fly in and out of airports that I'm not familiar with. This keeps me on edge and makes the experience all the more realistic. If you are determined to fly a specific route and the ATC is not online, you will be out of luck. One quick word as a controller and instructor - we at VATSIM are real people with real lives. Remember that we do this for fun, just like the pilots, but choose to endure the rigorous training in order to provide quality service. Often when real life takes over, VATSIM takes a back seat. For myself, being a professional musician, I will go for long stretches of time (2-5 weeks) without really participating, and then will return. I hope you can understand why sometimes coverage is not predictable. On the topic of becoming a controller, it took me 6 months from ground to center and I had to work quite a lot. I really appreciate the trouble that VATSIM takes to ensure that every controller has competency. As an instructor, I can say that the last thing I'd ever want for a student (say on a center position) is to run into a skilled pilot, choosing to do some military air refueling in restricted airspace and have no clue on how to deal with them. Also, do keep in mind that the higher the position, the more likely you will need juggle aircraft in very different situations. This is why we put such emphasis on every skill as you accumulate them. I find the experience extremely rewarding and hope that folks will take the time to really seek out training and become controllers. It also will make you a better pilot! If any folks have questions, I'd be happy to answer. Also, do come fly in Oakland airspace when I'm on center sometime! :) Thanks!

Thank you for making this. Really interesting stuff.

How strange. I guess I had felt that the "look" of the cockpit had changed from the original to the hotfix. I'll get my head checked out :)

Anybody?

Hi Folks, So far I've really loved every minute on the NGX. It's ruined me for all other airliners that I previously owned. I was curious if the VC was changed a bit with the latest hotfix. I flew the -900 last night and I noticed the landing lights had a slight green reflection on pavement (not present before) and now the windshield wiper looks artificially lifted from the light compared to before. Perhaps this was done in effort to minimize the out of memory issue causing the freezes. If this will not be changed, is it possible to uninstall the fix once you have put it in? Simple questions, but no complaints from my end!

Probably something that has more to do with EZDok than FSX itself.

When I fly on the VATSIM network, I enjoy looking up real world flight plans on flightaware.com. They often show the optimal cruise altitude an aircraft will use in addition to the current routing based on both on wind operations and weather along the way (that is if you don'd mind adding a 20 minute extension to your route to avoid some nasty weather during cruise.) You can always plug in the standard STAR used in conjunction with your approach to the airport (most airports use specific STARs depending on what direction you're coming from). Once ATC assigns you an approach, in the DEP/ARR section of the FMC, you can add the approach (ILS, RNAV or simply the runway itself for a visual approach) and execute it into the flight plan. Just make sure you double check your the LEGS page of the FMC to avoid any flight plan discontinuities. Finally, as a controller myself, I can let you know that if things get complicated in an airport, the en route or approach controller will take the time to re-clear your flight plan to your destination airport using a different STAR so you can easily amend it in the DEP/ARR page. Hope this helps!

I'm shocked at the quality given the fact that I fly the NGX on a 2008 Macbook Pro!! I had to turn down some of my settings slightly, but it still flys pretty smoothly!