77west

I have done some interesting ones. Cold Harbor to Anchorage. Not a normally flown route, but a continuation after we diverted there due to a false fire indication. Johannesburg to Auckland. You almost clip Antarctica, and you lose GPS coverage during this portion.

I think that's just how LCD screens look on the real airplane. Remember, they are not of the same quality as a modern computer screen, those LCD's are late 90s / early 2000s designs. They also have an anti-glare coating that may make the colours look a little washed out.

It turned out that was due to a misunderstanding of the flight crew on how the fuel system works. They thought it was unavail, but actually was.

This sort of situation really does show the value of the cockpit crew's decision making process. It is all so variable; and really depends on the crew, the airline, and above all, the route and current weather / situation. The previous BA incident, I fully would have agreed to continue to at least the New York area, by NYC I mean within an hours flight or so, as that is BA's major East Coast hub, There are plenty of airports between LAX and JFK if things got worse, and they were burning off fuel in the meantime, then re-assess, which it appears they did, and sadly got caught a bit short on the Atlantic run. As to the QRH, it might not tell you to land at the nearest airport, but I made a decision somewhere between Main and New Brunswick. Thats pretty close to Boston, and help. If this fault had shown up and hour or two later, we would have been well out over the Labrador sea, probably on our NAT track, and I would have elected to continue on to LHR, as the risks involved in returning at this point would outweigh the benefits. I welcome constructive arguments on this sort of situation as this is the sort of thing the commercial pilots get paid the big money for, not just raw flying skills but the decision making process and crew resource management. All of your comments are quite interesting and fully valid!

Good practice; I try to confirm fuel use at each waypoint, or if they are close together (less than 50nm or so), at every 2nd or 3rd waypoint. I note this in pen on my printed flightplan, next to the expected fuel value.

Yeah, it is a tricky one. Personally, if I had an engine failure just before beginning a long oceanic crossing, with diversion airports like Boston nearby, I would rather land. Yes, if we happened to lose another engine we would not crash, but would possibly be forced to descend on the busy NAT tracks with no guidance from ATC etc... BUT then that could be said for every twinjet flight across the pond as well. I think the BA flight thought they would do the USA crossing, and when nearer NYC re-assess. At that point it looked OK for the atlantic crossing, but by Ireland, not so much. If I faced the same situation over, say, the South Pacific, with questionable diversion airports both from an aviation and a passenger comfort standpoint, I would elect to continue onwards. Same could be said for Northern Russia / Arctic crossings, and, of course, Southern Arctic crossings.

For your next project, just tell everyone you have made a 787, it is fully automatic, and you don't even need to purchase it, the flights will be done with no interaction from the user at all. You don't even need to install it!

Whats with the self deprecation today Kyle! First this, then saying you are not smart.... I am worried

Probably, months. Has not even entered Beta testing yet. (from what we know) I would expect they will also want to work any 747-400 updates/fixes into the initial release of the -8, so you may see a couple of smaller updates/fixes for the -400 before you see the -8 (similar to what we saw with the 777) I think RSR will be giving us an update of where everything stands in the coming month.

Well played, SIR, well played...

Usually I would have, but had not planned to complete the full flight flight that day anyhow due to time constraints. I did save at several points so may re-visit it or just do a random failure. The decision would be up to the captain, with consultation to maintenance / head office. The LH incident you quoted seemed to end without any major issues, but the BA flight I referenced actually ended up diverting due to low fuel, and caused a kerfuffle with the US FAA. Just Google British Airways 747 LAX 3 engine... It may have been more like "behind the departing A320 line up and wait, behind" but I could not recall exactly (and it fitted the story better )

LOL had a good laugh at that!

New York. Avsim. 26 Feb 2017... So we set off from JFK in our British Airways 747-436. The usual ground delays, and we have fog as well. Thick fog. Like, cant see the wing tip fog. OK, we can deal with this. We even have a para-visual display. We fuel up, with an additional 10,000kg for ground delays, ATC delays and weather. This is gonna be a long night... Pushback commenced, I don't know how the ground crew even knows where to push us, the fog is that thick. We fire up 1 and 4. And wait. Taxi clearance delayed, again. Then, we get taxi clearance, and a request to expedite, at that. Talk about "that escalated quickly" Begin taxi, and fire up 2 and 3. We head for 22R. It is thick out there. Taxi is slow going... We get to the runway. Life is good. Or, not. Takeoff delay up to 5-10 minutes for traffic and weather. We do a belated PA trying to explain the situation. I can feel the glare of 336 passengers behind me. Finally, "position and hold". Second best three words, behind "cleared for takeoff". Now lined up on 22R, checks performed and four RB211 ready to light the fires, we wait, naturally, for a few more minutes. Aviation is all about the waiting... Cleared for takeoff. Finally. Lets go. The sound of the four RB211 spooling up cuts through the thick fog, and we are off. I can feel the power of these things, the energy being converted from chemical to thermal to mechanical to kinetic. We lift off and begin our long flight to Heathrow. And then we hit the turbulence. Not severe, but enough that I better leave the seat belt sign on, lest I spill Mr. Fotheringill-Mountbattens tea, down in seat 1A, should they to give it to him. We are vectored to the Hartford VOR and then onwards. Our initial altitude is a paltry FL270, but we soon step climb to FL310. And just as we are settling in to enjoy a dreamy atlantic crossing, somewhere over Maine, we get an oil pressure alert on number three. Well, this is not what we need right now. We follow the checklists and advise ATC. We decide to shut down number three. (It appeared like it was about to wreck itself, so seemed prudent) Unlike a previous company flight from LAX, we will not be continuing on to Heathrow on 3 engines. Looks like we are spending the night in Boston... We now need to dump fuel. Around 30 tons worth. I better cancel my Greenpeace subscription... Our helpfull Boston Center ATC vectors us out over the Atlantic and allows us to begin the fuel jettison procedure. They ask us to give them 5 min notice to fuel dump completion. Helpfully, the 747 displays the time to fuel dump completion, making life easier. No need to break out the calculator here. We end our fuel jettison on our way in to Boston, and begin a vectored approach to RW22L. The only problem is, that there is heavy mist/fog in Boston as well. But wait, the 747 can do a CAT3 on 3 engines! We will be fine. We set up, and plan on a flaps 30 landing with autobrakes 4. We had not intended on a full autoland, but the weather had other ideas. We only made visual contact at around 100ft, and the aircraft proceeded to make a perfect landing and rollout at Boston. We then proceeded to the terminal, whilst the company hurriedly arranged flights for our passengers on other services, and arranged for engineering to have a look at the sick number 3 engine. Mr. Fotheringill-Mountbatten, down in seat 1A, informed us he would be laying a formal complaint. They really don't know the levels we go to for their safety. And the capabilities of the Boeing 747. But the British Airways motto is "To Fly To Serve" and that is what we will continue to do... And the 747 will continue to be the Queen of the Skies I suppose chapter 2 could be us flying a 5th pod with the damaged engine back to LHR. But, I struggle to write stories so we will see.

Sadly true... I suffered an OOM yesterday with 16GB system RAM and an 8GB video card. If FSX / P3D can only access 4GB, then anything more does not help anything.

Looks like its been on the bottom of a lake!!! Well done!

It is not listed in the QRH or FCOM, therefore, it is not possible. (Physics also has a footnote that has more weight than any document) [sorry for the pun...]

Thats what I mean, people will throw a frothy about a small FMC option that is wrong, but totally ignore the fact the livery / windows are completely wrong. But in any case, this is not the right thread to discuss this..

Perhaps best to ask that in the PFPX forum...

David, I, personally, rarely leave the flight deck myself. I am happily flying the PMDG 744ERF Cathay, with the broken engine textures, because I don't tend to go outside. I just find it weird that painters, who live and breathe the exterior paint scheme, seem to often treat the windows as if they are not there, and that every airline has the same window line. These are not mere pedantics; the window blanks tell us a lot about the cabin layout and indeed in some liveries, KLM for example, almost all windows between doors 1R and 2R are blanked out due to the longitudinal galley option they have chosen. This is just as visible to me as any logo, livery, cheatlines etc. Perhaps it is just me...

I am not trying to nit pick, but people spend hours getting the exact dimensions of logos, lettering, etc, then forget this fairly simple step. Just seems strange. This is PMDG after all... :smile: Cheers paul, I thought it may have been a work in progress. Didn't mean any offense, but it was just something I noted on many other paints. I suppose some people may struggle with the alpha layer manipulation so just leave them as default. I will download for sure...

Did you pull a British Airways and continue on to destination?

Chalk it up to the vagaries of computers? I would not generally be worried about a couple knots difference between displays, except that the selected IAS should really be driven off the MCP and thus match. But then this is an old airplane, the newest 744 is still around 10 years old now, so perhaps just the effects of age on the systems...

It is not a problem with the aircraft AFAIK, it is that the nav data simply does not include Antarctic airfields... I had the same issue years back when the T7 first released. EDIT: May contain the airports, but no accurate runway data... probably because they change each season.

I note many painters are leaving the two windows aft of the upper deck visible. I have never seen a 747-400 with windows in this location... and leaving the -400D windows on the upper deck of the normal -400 on the other side. In fact many are not even blanking out the correct windows based on lavatory / galley location... Sad considering how much detail they put into the other areas of the airplane. (Please dont get me wrong, thats a great paint, just commenting on my own observations.)