pilot87

Some companies will release above the "minimum safe altitude" for the airport. In Australia at least, it is a requirement to accelerate to 250kts as soon as practical (unless told otherwise by ATC). Remember your cabin crew are trained professionals, who are aware how to do their job properly. You may also be on a short hop to which means they need all the time they can get. Take a typical Sydney - Melbourne pairing for example. Quite often the flight time is 50-60mins which is not a whole lot of time to serve 180 or so passengers, allow time to eat or drink, collect rubbish and then be seated for landing. If it's smooth and above the minimum legal height for people to be up out of their seat (in Australia that's on completion of take-off and not less than 1000ft above terrain [CAO 20.16.3]) - there's really no reason why you can't release them. As far as why it's done after the after take-off checklist - usually you'll be above the required height and secondly the first priority is always to fly the plane (which includes checklists) Of course, as the pilot in command it's your decision as to when (if at all) you release both the cabin crew and passengers, so if you're not happy - delay.

I've seen it at certain angles taxiing behind A320s and 737s before. Based on the infrequency of seeing it I suspect you need fairly specific conditions/angles to see it (i.e. lucky photographer & right place at the right time)

It looks like the new issue July/August 2015 Issue 98. Newsagent or you can buy online through the PC Pilot webpage

Hi Michael, At FlightSimCon 2015 RSR discussed a few items that PMDG has in the works namely the DC-6, 747v2 and a discussion and possible better integration for home sim builders. If you haven't seen it, I'd highly recommend watching the address he gave, as it gives you a great idea as to where PMDG are at the moment with current and possible future projects. If you don't have the time, you can skip to 20:25 and that will cover your question. Or the link https://youtu.be/uitDqLsD8pc?t=20m25s will take you directly there.

Might be an option: https://shopmate.auspost.com.au/our-services/how-shopmate-works Relatively new program with Australia Post. I've never used it so cannot vouch for it.

Most regional airports in Australia only have NDBs and RNAV approaches. It's also a significant part of the instrument rating and navigation aid requirements.

MEL stands for Minimum Equipment List and is a document produced by the manufacturer (sometimes varied by the operator in conjunction with the local aviation safety authority) that lists the systems that have enough redundancy to allow continued safe operation if a system malfunctions. It spells out the operational and maintenance requirements, how many is the minimum for dispatch and a maximum time period the "MEL" is allowed to continue until it has to be fixed before any further flight. It usually only applies to systems that have multiple backup systems (it does sometimes include things that don't have multiples but may have significant restrictions). An MEL differs from the QRH in that the QRH deals with a situation immediately whereas the MEL applies to subsequent dispatch post a malfunction. It allows the aircraft to continue operating if parts aren't immediately available or you happen to be in a port that doesn't have maintenance facilities. It also includes some cabin and passenger convenience items such as a damaged seatbelt or a blown globe in a reading lamp. In the case of a damaged seatbelt it may say something along the lines of "... the aircraft may continue to operate for a period of 3 days provided the broken seat is not occupied and it is marked as not to be occupied." Some MELs impose significant performance limitations (such as reducing the maximum allowable take-off weight) so the statement "we have no MEL issues today" simply means there are no MELs on the aircraft that will affect the departure. Something like a broken seatbelt would be notified to the Cabin Manager at first flight, but doesn't need to be mentioned at every departure.

No problems! Glad I could help.

No problems at all. The easiest thing to do is open the panel and just read from top to bottom, remembering that you need to start with "Are you ready for the departure/approach brief" and finish with "Any questions?" The only additional information we normally include in a brief (that's not included in the FS2Crew briefings) is chart specific information (i.e. SIDs/STARs/Approaches/Etc). I'll try and give you a basic brief (remembering my comment that things can and do change each sector) based on the options set in the FS2Crew Manual Briefing Panel Description: The only big addition to what's in FS2Crew that we normally do is briefing charts such as the SID, STAR and Approach chart. Some brief the expected taxi route and you'd normally also include the target speeds (V1, VR, V2) and initial ATC altitude limit (if you've been given one). You'd also consider what you would do if you had an Engine Failure. There are plenty of YouTube videos available of crews completing briefs and can be adapted to suit your needs. Remember that the brief is as much for you as it is for the First Officer. It's a description of your intended plan to get to where you want to end up (either cruise or a safe landing) starting from the initial point (take-off roll/STAR entry waypoint) and ending at the completion of the SID/landing (or even shutting down at the gate). If you made a list of things to do for the day, you start at the start and finish at the end. Hopefully that helps, and if you require any further clarification, please don't hesitate to ask.

Are you after a transcript specifically or a list of items generally included in a brief? In real life briefs can and do vary from sector to sector and sometimes even pilot to pilot.

Morning Chris, The documents that PMDG provide with the NGX are your best friend for most answers - primarily FCOM2 which explains how each of the systems work in great detail. But here's the areas to look: FCOM2 Page 10.16.4 EFIS Buttons "WXR (weather radar) – energizes weather radar transmitter and displays weather radar returns in MAP, center MAP, expanded VOR, and expanded APP modes" (Centre console functions control the actual functions such as tilt, etc and the EFIS button is your basic on/off switch) NGX Introduction Document Page 44 "...requires the Active Sky Next or later weather engine software from HiFi Technologies Inc." It must be running before running for display of weather information to be displayed. FCOM2 Page 11.10.32 Talks about the Collins 622 Radar which is similar and will give you a general description on each of basic functions of the radar. If you want something more in depth, the smart cockpit link that Freddy posted above is the user guide from Rockwell Collins specifically for the Collins WXR 2100 radar that is simulated in the NGX. It is very in depth and detailed. Also a search of the forum will return a large number of topics about the radar. The troubleshooting guide Freddy posted as well has some guidance. See above. Documents such as the Rockwell Collins User Manual assume a certain level of knowledge. As such reading documents like that will more than likely need to be read in conjunction with other material to assist in understanding. The systems modelled are obviously quite complex but with some research and reading - certainly not out of reach of anyone. Hope that answers your questions.

Just to add to what Romain and Devin said: We use UTC/Zulu time for the sake of clarity and to reduce confusion. Using a common time removes confusion for pilots and ATC. Think of an international flight crossing multiple time zones and an en-route/oceanic controller located in a completely different time zone again - if you didn't use UTC, who's time would you use and how would you communicate that with ATC or other aircraft? Here in Australia we have two enroute (centre) control centres - one in Brisbane that looks after the whole of Northern Australia and one in Melbourne that looks after the whole of Southern Australia. There are twelve time zones across Australian controlled airspace so if a pilot departing one city on the other side of the country falls under Melbourne Centre (located on the opposite side and three time zones away), who's time would you use for waypoint estimates? As an alternative the US has 9 separate time zones (although they also have more en-route control centres as well). It's essentially the same as setting a standard pressure reference (1013/29.92) when operating above the transition level/altitude - it puts everyone on the same setting so there's no confusion. Or even using English as a standard language - again, if this wasn't the case International pilots would need to fluently speak hundreds of languages in a technical setting.

The display of ILS DME is one that I'm not sure of either. To be honest I nearly left it out of my post, but decided in the end it was still relevant for the overall discussion with a disclaimer regarding the location of the DME. Regarding hand flown GPS/VOR approaches, I'm certainly not aware of any legal reason you can't do that. Boeing (and other aircraft manufacturers) recommend using automation wherever possible because it's safer and generally is a little smoother. It's mostly safer as it frees up mental space for the pilots to monitor and concentrate on things. There's much talk in human factors circles though regarding the degradation of hand flying skills due to autopilot usage. That's not to say it's bad... just like every system you have to be aware of the downsides as well. I would say like most things there are multiple ways to do it. You could continue to fly what's known as raw data with the autopilot. In that case it's simply a matter of dialing up the frequency via the FMC and then using the course bars for your outbound track (and inbound if it's a reversal procedure). If you want to completely hand fly it with no flight directors that would be substantially more complex (not impossible). In that situation the Pilot Monitoring would become crucial in a two crew aircraft as you'd ask them to make the MCP changes to ensure the bugs are set correctly to allow you to monitor. If you use the Autopilot but not coupled to LNAV there's no reason why you can't use the LOC function to track the course or even use the course deviation and heading mode to track the VOR radial. For GPS it obviously does require LNAV/VNAV (although the same 3° profile still applies) and you can hand fly following the the flight directors. In a general sense the mode selectors control the flight director outputs (what you see on your PFD) and then the autopilot flies the flight directors. There's no reason you can't hand fly the flight director outputs!

If you want to get into it a bit deeper you can use the following procedure, which is also relevant if flying an aircraft that does not have a coupled VNAV option (i.e. the autopilot will follow a programmed Vertical Navigation Profile): Generally speaking, all ILS approaches have a glide path of approximately 3°. 3° works out to be roughly 1nm per 1000ft of altitude so 3x your altitude (divided by 1000) will give the distance you should be. For example, at 1000ft you should be 3nm, 2000ft should be 6nm and so on. You can get your distance information either from a dme (remember though that the dme location may not be at the runway threshold) or the distance to waypoint on the ND. If you are "on slope" then descent rate using vertical speed (VS) is simply ground speed divided by 2 and multiplied by 10 (e.g. 160kts/2 = 80 x 10 = 800feet per minute). If you were at 4000ft at 9nm (you should be 12nm for 4000ft) then you'd be high so should increase the descent rate. How much you increase the descent rate is a judgement call depending on where you are in the approach. If you were at 4000ft at 3nm you'd be 3000ft to high and obviously would need a very high rate of descent. That close to the landing runway you'd be non-compliant with stable approach and the best course of action would be to conduct a missed approach and try again. If you're low (e.g. 3000ft at 12nm) you simply reduce the feet per minute until you catch up to where you should be. I normally do it every 1000ft on an approach. With the glideslope out you would still load the "ILS" into the FMC as per usual to allow auto-tuning of the localizer frequency and then use just "LOC" mode (rather than approach mode) to track the localizer only. Using Vertical Speed (VS) mode certainly increases your workload and mental processing, and may take some practice to get used to it (especially at the high speeds that the 777 can move at). This procedure is what I use daily at work flying a high performance turboprop with no VNAV for descent profile planning and monitoring. For practice and monitoring the autopilot is doing what it's supposed to, let it fly the ILS in approach mode on autopilot and cross-reference the above method with what's displayed on your PFD/ND. Hope that helps, if you need anything clarified please let me know!

Perhaps some clarification of what ZFW is, is relevant here. Zero Fuel Weight is a combination of Operating Empty Weight (OEW) and the Payload (Passengers and Freight/Cargo/Bags) before usable fuel is added to the aircraft to make the Ramp Weight. Boeing defines OEW as the manufacturers empty weight plus standard and operational items [Boeing Startup Glossary]. Standard and operational items include such things as unusable fuel and other unusable fluids (i.e. fuel that can't be burnt due to pump location) engine oil, toilet chemicals, emergency equipment, crew and baggage, navigational material and manuals and essentially anything else the airline chooses to add as a standard part and common to every flight (standard catering, galley equipment, etc.) As such ZFW varies from sector to sector, however Boeing have a Maximum Zero Fuel Weight as listed in FCOM 1 Limitations, using the 737-800 for the example, of 61,688kg/136,000lbs. So as long as your ZFW is equal to or less than those figures you're not exceeding any weight limitations. If you go to the CDU and completely unload the aircraft of payload (freight/passengers) and fuel you get a figure of roughly 41,400kg or 91,300lbs. The actual figure for a real Ryanair aircraft may be different depending on what they determine to be Standard and Operational Items. As you're not able to adjust this figure (without breaching the EULA) this is the only figure you can really work with. If you take the MZFW from the OEW it gives you a useful payload of 20,288kg/44,700lbs which can be made up of either passengers or cargo (which is why Joe said you can just enter a ZFW as the aircraft does not care if it's passengers or cargo). For entry into the aircraft, it's simply a matter of heading to the CDU main menu --> FS Actions --> Payload and on the right hand side, second from the top is an option to insert a ZFW instead of manually setting the passengers and cargo load.

haha it aviation truly is a small world! Thankyou and thanks for all your hard work. It's hard to get out of the multi-crew environment when you're so used to it - I don't do any desktop flying without your products now!

Hi Bryan, Something I was wondering if you might be able to consider, Virgin Australia 737 crew notify the cabin for departure by cycling the "chime" rather than announcing "cabin crew, seats for departure" as part of the runway entry procedure and then the head flight attendant makes the cabin announcement. Would it be possible to have selection of chime rather than the F/O making an announcement?

Do you mean is the Storm light detrimental to your night vision? Absolutely it is, but it's better to be controlled about it than seeing white spots for a few minutes after each lightning flash. Your eyes take approximately 30-40mins for the pigments known as rhodopsin (sometimes called visual purple) to adjust the eyes to full night vision. This is destroyed in an instant with a bright flash (such as a lightning strike) however the bright flash could leave you disorientated and seeing spots for a few minutes, so it's better to be controlled about it. If you're also interested, exposure to bright glare (such as a beach or snow) can reduce your night vision for up to a week by about 30-50%!

That's the main reason I prefaced it with being a "simple overview" with a lot more to consider in real operations, but you are indeed correct. There's also Pressure Error corrections for some altimeters, glide path failure consideration, ILS critical area protection and autoland along with missed approach performance on some approaches where there's a different DA based on the performance you can maintain in a missed approach.

You're most welcome Rick! I was concerned even that was too detailed and people wouldn't want to read through the whole thing - it certainly ended up a little more than a "quick rundown!" Good to know it was of use.

Hi Brennan, I can give you a quick rundown on what to put there (this is a simple overview of the system - in reality there is a lot more to consider then what I've shown here!). Firstly, a quick overview. There's currently three types of ILS approaches available (not at every airport as it depends on infrastructure amongst other things) - Category (CAT) I, II and III (which is further broken down into IIIa, IIIb and IIIc). Each approach type has a general decision altitude/height: CAT I - 200ft, Minimum Visibility of 1,800ft CAT II - 100ft, Minimum Visibility of 1,200ft CAT IIIa - No Decision Height, Minimum Visibility of 700ft CAT IIIb - No Decision Height, Minimum Visibility of 150ft CAT IIIc - No Decision Height, No minimum Visibility (CAT IIIc have a substantial number of ground requirements such as taxi guidance for zero visibility as well as the actual approach infrastructure). The design criteria of the approach (as well as obstacles in the missed approach path) determines the height at which the decision height or altitude occurs. CAT I approaches and any non precision approach (such as VOR or RNAV arrivals) use an altitude (DA) that is reference to a barometric altimeter (BARO mode on your EFIS Display Control Panel - near where you select the current QNH). CAT II and all type III approaches use a height (DH) that is referenced to a radio altimeter height or height above ground (RADIO on EFIS display control panel or DCP). You'll notice if you change between RADIO and BARO on the EFIS DCP, so too will the title of the minimums section of the FS2Crew briefing panel. I'd also add that the point of a missed approach point (or DA/DH) is a safe point to conduct a missed approach from (without hitting anything) but also safe to conduct a landing if you can see the runway with the required visibility (and that's a whole other topic!!). So, where do you get this information from? As Peter suggested, approach charts give you all this information including whether the runway you intend to use is capable of accepting CAT II or III arrivals. There are multiple websites out there to use or payware files. However I believe skyvector.com has most of the US airports. As an example if you look at the CAT II approach at Los Angeles (KLAX) ILS 24R you'll see it is capable of CAT II and IIIa & B arrivals. For CAT II it says RA 115 so in this case you would set a your MINS selector to RADIO (which also changes the FS2Crew briefing panel to RADIO) and a height of 115ft. If you were conducting just the CAT I approach the altitude listed on the separate chart is 320ft (or 200ft above the ground) so you would set the MINS selector to BARO and set 320ft. As you may know the altimeter displays a height above mean sea level (AMSL) corrected for the current atmospheric pressure so if you add the threshold elevation of 120ft to the 200ft for a CAT I approach, you get.... 320ft! As far as a VOR or RNAV approach approach goes you would use BARO. For a visual approach, that would most likely vary from airline to airline and your virtual airlines may be able to provide some guidance as to what they recommend to set. As a general rule for a visual approach, Boeing recommends that you have the aircraft in a stable approach configuration (fully configured with gear and landing flaps extended, and speed not more than 20kts above your landing speed - amongst a few other things) by 500ft. So in this case you could set a BARO altitude of 500ft plus whatever the height of the aerodrome is, and this can be found on any approach chart or on the main aerodrome chart. So again using LAX - the overall aerodrome has an elevation of 128ft so 500 + 128 is 628... pretty close (and always safer to round up) to 630ft for the BARO altitude. In same cases this could be quite high depending on where you're landing (such as Las Vegas which has an elevation of 2181 so that would be 2681 or 2700ft AMSL, yet still only 500ft and a bit above the ground!!). Again this is a very simple overview but I hope it answers your question and helps you understand what to set and why - aviation is all about learning!