Turnip5799

Could this be the ALTERNATE / DIVERT field he is talking about? Those flight paths will show up on the FMC. Just a thought.

Thanks for all the help mate. Cheers!

Sorry about the name downscc. I have flown the first tutorial 4 times. I will continue with the more in depth ones. Elton Hyland

OK I just flew a route from KLAX to KLAS. Although there is an altitude callout on the FMC for a given waypoint, the FMC does not initiate the decent on its own if the altitude numbers are colored MAGENTA! I had to select ALT INT on the MCP. That would start the decent to whatever altitude I had input on the MCP. Am I correct in assuming that if the FMC thinks I cannot make the altitude, it will not initiate the decent?

Thank you both for the great info. Now, on to the next question as I want to get this in my head correctly. I get a lot of errors on the FMC that states something like "Cant make altitude" ( I don't remember the exact words ).What its telling me is that the aircraft cannot descend or climb at a rate that will enable me to be at that altitude in that short of a time or distance. How do I get around this as the transition is listed on the FMC. In that case, is it OK to NOT put in a transition? Second question, when setting up the FMC, there are speed / Alt to the right of the waypoint / fix. Should I leave those there or do they nbeed changed also?

One thing I think that I am getting confused on is the SID and STAR insertion. When I generate a route through PFPX, it shows a SID/STAR. When I load it into the 737NGX FMC, do I still nee to manual select the SID/STAR in the FMC? Secondly, in the FMC it wants me to select a TRANSISTION. I have the trans altitude set at 18,000 for the U.S. Is there a set fix that I need to be at when I hit that transition altitude? Sometimes, there is already a fix listed there or do I need to check the plate for this fix? A bit confused on this part as you can see. Thanks very much for any input or help.

Sorry for the multi post. AVSIM kept telling me that "I can't do that" so I tried multiple times. Secondly, I am just learning the FMC and PFPX. My thought was that If I had a couple of flight plans that were "tried and true", I could load them into the FMC and get a better idea about how SIDS and STARS work while flying. I will give flightaware a look an see what I can come up with. Thanks. Scaninavian13... where is the "QUICK FIND" option locate? Are you talking about in PFPX or Flightaware?

I have been using the PFPX flight planner and it works well but was wondering if there was a place where we can get flight plans made by other pilots to use in the FMC. Kinda the lazy way to go flying. Thanks Elton Hyland