Iain

Oh, now that you mention it, it is you, I never realised, a very happy and calm pilot!! Return flight done, SABE winds were dead calm, warm, clear skies, just like a Norwegian winter, I'm happy to be here, Bergen weather was getting a bit crazy. Next flight is to Mendoza so will post that up this evening or tomorrow, the first evening flight will be a special youtube video, with a bit more editing to show off this wonderful creation by the IXEG team.

Please excuse the landing Jan!

A very rough and ready of the landing, definition is a bit low in youtube, will upload a high res tomorrow.

Slow progress to Buenos Aires, but plenty fuel at least, TOD in 50 mins, 6.5T fuel onboard. Time to bump up the cruise speed a bit. Land at SAEZ then relocate to SABE tomorrow (real aircraft relocated this morning), then flight booked to Cordoba tomorrow, dep 7:30 local, arr 8:55.

Hi Jan Actually, with a low ZFW of around 34, it's surprising how far you can fly in the -300. ESSA-GCLP 2468nm 1700kg remaining. GCLP-SBSG 2378nm 2300kg remaining SBSG-SAEZ 2383nm 2600kg remaining Working 12 hr shifts doesn't help to get these flights done, I want to do SBSG-SAEZ today so I can do the first commercial flight on Tuesday, but I can't really fit it in, unless I go home, greet the wife and go straight to my PC...actually, I think it's the only way to do it Is there a better way to put a youtube video here or just use a link?

Video of the landing.... https://youtu.be/hWkr0JAkExI

Leaving GCLP for Brazil Final, Natal

Hi Jan I downloaded the Boeing font and changed the tail to 737-800 (hope you don't mind) and repositioned in to match LV-HQH. I will post some pics and a video on Youtube of the first flight from SABE, believe me, Argentina with Ortho looks stunning, after 30 years of simming, the peak has been reached, look forward to Tuesday. Cheers Iain

I managed to do this myself, thought I may as well learn the basics of painting at some point, the font colour is a little weak, will correct that later. Current location of my 737 is Canary Islands, arrived from Norwegians paint shop in Stockholm yesterday, set off for Natal in Brazil later today and then on to Buenos Aires on Monday. First commercial flight out of Jorge Newbery airport on Tuesday, interesting place, runway is only 6890ft long. Parked up at GCLP Leaving ESSA SABE, Jorge Newbury and Buenos Aires

Aircraft Condition Monitoring System system is not a feature of the FMC, best way to fix it...don't click it

Morning all. Norwegian (the real airline) are starting flights from Argentina, Buenos Aires or the 16th of October, LV-HQH has been for route proving in the last few months, flying from the Norwegian paint shop in Stockholm via Canary Islands and Brazil. It returned on the 5th of October in preparation for the first flight. Norwegian virtual will simulate this timetable so I also plan a ferry flight, some local area training, at start the first flight on the 16th or the 17th. I have the scenery all sorted, the original content of this thread was a request to have a new livery with the correct tail code, but I managed to change it myself, see below. Look forward to updating you in the next few days, and eventually have a short youtube video of the first flight. Fresh out the paint shop

Please remember, these sort of changes mid flight exposes the weak points in the FMC, the VNAV can get a bit lost and your TOD becomes completely screwed, not always, but for me it's best to put restrictions in or bypass restrictions before leaving the gate. Then once in the air, double check the TOD is correct. If I do on the fly changes to simulate ATC clearing me higher, which is quite common for departures from London area where the SID has you at 6000ft a very long time, I usually just line select the first waypoint that has no restriction and click it to the top of the list. I found this way to give less problems. Worst TOD fail I had was flying to Svalbard, ended up at 10'000ft in a steep dive towards the Barents sea, you can see the profile here, not pretty! https://www.virtualnorwegian.net/pirep/138971/

Well, this is quite a common problem, and you can read the answer here The only problem being you seam to have a slightly different problem in that you don't have the small error box. I'm not expert on this stuff but since you haven't had any support I thought this suggestion might help.

MGEISS is correct, but I think you need to sit and watch various FMC tutorials, there are lots out there and without trying to sound smart, your questions are basic level questions for the FMC. One tip would be to search for PMDG 737 FMC tutorial, the FMC is the same except PMDG has more features enabled, but your questions are on basic operations so you shouldn't have any problem finding answers, and video's are much easier to follow that trying to work out what people mean in their text. But to add my points in case you are still not sure. SIDS STARTS and RW can be changed at any time, remember though when you change your STAR in mid flight, it might look like your route has been completely screwed up, but by using the LEGS page, you can rejoin the route to make it correct again. And this leads to your other question, how to select a waypoint that is in the plan but further down the list. This type of change is probably one of the most common and useful things you need to be able to do. Learning this allows your to skip waypoints which is quite common when pilots ask for shortcuts or ATC say go direct to a waypoint, and as I mentioned before, you do this to fix the route once you change a STAR. As MGEISS said, you are basically dragging the route up to join up the complete route, an incomplete route will have a line that says ROUTE DISCONTINUITY. This error was the biggest headache for me when learning the FMC!! All it means is there is a gap in your route, and all you do is select the waypoint below this message, and click on the line above to effectively drag it one line up and join the route up. As I said, find a good youtube video and it will be much easier, you can checkout flightdeck2sim, have a look around the 3:30 mark, you can see how to advance to the next waypoint. I'm at work so I can't watch in detail but I think this helps you out. The green arc is a great tool, but you need to know what it is an it's limits. It basically shows you at which point in your flight path, you will reach the altitude that you have selected in the MCP. So if you are at 20'000ft and you select 15'000ft, it will show you at what point you will reach that altitude...but, you need to do a few things to make it work. 1st you need to actually be descending, so setup a V/S of say -1000ft / min, then once you start to descend. you will see the green arc show up on the ND. The other thing you need to check is that your ND range is correct, so for the above example, it will take 5 minutes to descent 5000ft and -1000ft per min, and you might need 10nm to do that descent, if your ND range is set to 5nm, the green arc won't show as it's out the top of the screen.

https://www.virtualnorwegian.net/pirep/145926/ Was hoping to beat the 5hr mark across the pond, winds were great today, track U eastbound, 143kts tail wind, CI 100 and Mach .77 and a pretty light load. 2.5 hrs worth of fuel left as well! Another first I have to try is the KPVD to Bergen, a bit risky but should be quite easy with winds like today. Was tempted to land the opposite way at Shannon but that would be highly unprofessional! No attempt being made at the return flight until the winds calm down

Vspeeds, Vref and Flap speeds are based on the weight of the aircraft. Flap limit speeds are based on Vref (landing speed for your current weight + xx kts). The reference table is in the cockpit, above your head to the left, the yellow stamp. Something like this Landing Speeds for the 737-300/400/500 Landing Weight 737-300 20K 737-400 23.5K 737-500 18.5K Flaps Flaps Flaps /1000kg 40 30 15 40 30 15 40 30 15 70 155 159 177 65 152 153 165 149 154 171 60 145 147 158 143 147 164 140 144 154 55 138 141 151 137 141 156 134 139 148 50 131 134 144 130 134 149 128 133 141 45 123 127 136 124 127 141 122 125 135 40 115 119 128 116 119 132 114 117 125 35 107 111 119 109 111 123 107 109 116 It is generally not good practice to to use flaps near their max speeds to help with slowing the aircraft down, that is putting undue stress on the flaps and the flap mechanics, although flaps 10 is a setting not used for much apart from being able to keep your speed down without flying around with the gear down. VNAV has to be used with caution, especially at low altitude. You statement is a bit confusing "speeds up high, but can't get near the speed on the fmc". Do you mean your IAS will not reach the speed stated on the LEGS page of the FMC? Or you have excessive vertical speeds to maintain the MCP speed (a more common problem). VNAV with follow the vertical profile in the FMC, but if you have no height restrictions, and have an alt set in mcp, VNAV simply sets idle thrust and pitches to hold speed, which can result in a high vertical speed. In this case, I would recommend using vertical speed mode and monitor the green arc in the ND to determine when you will reach you target altitude, adjust your vertical speed accordingly, if you can't descend without your speed increasing, then best to slow down more before starting descent, or use some speed brake. Personally, I stop using VNAV once below about 6000 - 8000ft due to the possible high vertical speeds.

Perfect Jan, I will have a look at that file.

Jan I thought the LEGS page should allow you to enter a full coordinate but the RTE pages was only the shorter version, and that IXEG didn't model the full version, PMDG allows full version in their LEGS page, just saying, maybe -300 is different from -800 FMC? For a coordinate like 4153N08729W, you should be able to use the accepted short format 4187N and it would work but the coordinate would be a few nm off. I have never tried that, I only use the daily published NATS and they are 5 digit format only (but I know I used full format in the LEGS page of PMDG in the past). I guess this works for any coordinate? Jan, on this subject, NATS like 51050N work but N5150 are not accepted, what am I doing wrong?

It can be done, but it’s a hassle! 2200nm is no big issue, 2500 with a headwind is ok as long as you limit your zfw, ci 0, and don’t expect to land with much more than 2000kg left. 2700nm with tail winds and full load (US east coast to Ireland) is not much problem.

Well, if you want to simulate the flight conditions, jam your chair up against your desk till your knees are crushed and sit there the whole flight! But seriously, there are a few ways to plan for a flight. - Just fly a straight line, put departure airport and destination into the FMC takeoff, head towards destination and land. Less planning, less FMC work etc, but highly unrealistic. - Plan the route yourself, use something like Skyvector. Go to Skyvector, select flight plan, put in CYYZ - MRLB, set map option to World Hi, then start to join up the flight plan yourself, very time consuming. - A more popular method is to use and online flight planner to generator the flight plan for you. My VA generates my flight plans, which i then modify, you can use free web sites such as http://rfinder.asalink.net/free/ Put in CYYZ-MRLB and hit Find Route, it then generates the route below. You can then copy paste this into skyvector (the white box in the flight planning section) and now you can see your full flight plan below. CYYZ SID FOXEE Q145 HVQ J85 SPA J53 IRQ J81 GRADY J53 DUNKN J81 NOWAY J53 CRG J113 DEARY J20 LLNCH J113 ARKES J20 VKZ G430 EONNS A509 URSUS UA301 UCA UB767 GCM UG877 MGA UM328 IMOLA STAR MRLB You could put this flight plan into the RTE page of the FMC manually, ie. to HVQ via Q145 to SPA via J85 etc etc, but this can take a while for a long route. I do this method for routes that are not too long, the route above would only take 5 mins to input though. There are plenty other websites that generate routes, the other one I use is Simbrief, the advantage of this is that it generates the flight plan, and you can then save this file to a folder on your pc then move it into the co-routes folder and load it directly from the FMC. You then only have to select runways, SIDS and STARs and off you go. The website also gives you full fuel planning etc, the only thing you have to do is manually manually register your aircraft (weights etc) one time as the IXEG 737 isn't there by default. For you FMC problems, VNAV errors can be minimized by checking the FMC flight plan before you start engines. For me this is VERY important as you can have a smooth flight 99% of the times if you do this...and I have done about 400 flights in this aircraft. To do this, finish your whole FMC planning, make sure you have no errors, then check the legs page and make sure you have a speed and altitude in the right hand side for EVERY waypoint. This is what the FMC is following, if any line is blank, it will screw up. The most common error with FMC planning is pressing EXEC to activate the route, but forgetting to press EXEC on the performance page and then the LEGS page is not correct. Long flight are quite easy to plan, PMDG have a nice feature called pause at TOD, which doesn't exits in the IXEG plan, but, since the TOD can become a bit messed up, you should try using a programme called Autopause or pauseforme. https://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?/files/file/7257-autopause140zip/ At anytime, go to the plugin from the menu, select the airport box, type in the ICAO code, put in the nm you want it to pause, activate it, close it and leave your sim alone. The majority of decents start between 130 to 100nm away at normal cruise heights so set this to 150nm or 200nm then you have time to sort yourself out when you get back to your sim. Hope that helps.

Your right in that being single pilot can make the cockpit quite busy, there are a few things you can do to make sure you have enough time for everything. I am guessing you are flying offline so you don't need to worry about ATC. Make sure you use the checklists, or like me, I made my own checklist as simming has some differences to the real world. For the descent, check the WX for your destination before you reach the TOD, have all the RW and ILS info setup in the MCP and FMC before you reach your TOD, have pressurisation and air con sorted before TOD Use VNAV for the initial descent, it will descend you and follow the altitude and speed restrictions as you descend, you only need to make sure you have the MCP height updated, in real life you would follow descent instruction, but in the sim you can dial in 2000ft to the MCP before TOD, and then just monitor it. Be ready for the 250kts speed restriction, at 12'000ft, have the MCP mode ready for the speed reduction to 250kts, be ready with landing lights. For waypoint heights, a good tip is to not try to reach that waypoint at that height, the restriction doesn't mean reach the height jsut as you get to it, it only means be at the height when you finally get to it, so if you are at 16'000ft and the next restriction is 12'000ft and it's 20nm away, you can press LVL CHG, let the aircraft descent at idle thrust, you will reach 12'000ft a few minutes before you get to the waypoint but that's ok, it gives you time to monitor your approach, check weather, get ready for the next descent, manage your speed etc. The 737 doesn't go down and slow down very easily so it's a good idea to only do one at a time, ie. descent at a certain speed, or slow down when level, it's not easy to descent and slow down.

Looking at the chart on Navigraph, if you using the MISEN transition, then you can see some hard speed and altitude restrictions. MISEN FL240, CLARR 13'000ft & 250kts, (now called feet as your change from FL to ft at 18'000ft in the USA), KPEC 13'000ft etc etc. There are a few ways to fly it, if (and you should) have your FMC setup before takeoff, and have the expected STAR and RW already planned (better using 26L for this approach), then your FMC will show all these altitude and speed restrictions already. While cruising along at whatever height, just before TOD, set your MCP height down to 3800ft (the ILS height of 26L), then your VNAV will descend you all the way to the ILS and follow all the restrictions for you. You just need to check it's behaving, put your landing light on, have a cup of tea! Where you see the small black writing for heights next to the lines, those are the minimum height, don't try and fly at those heights! If ATC gave you no instructions, then you can let VNAV do it all for you, probably more realistic is to set your MCP atl to 24000, and when you get to it, change to 13000, then it's up to you to press V/S and set a V/S so the green arc is over CLARR showing you will reach CLARR at 13000ft, or you can just set 13000 and press LVL CHG, and it will descent you at idle thrust, in this case, you may reach 13000 before you get to CLARR but that's ok. That's one of the main things with sim flying, you can VNAV the whole descent as you have no ATC to give instructions, or you can do it a bit more manually, and pretend that ATC are telling you to descend, and then you do it with V/S or LVL CHG. Watch some youtube videos, loads of cockpit video's out there, plenty of 737-800 etc, a few with the -400, you can see how it works in real life. My favourites here, cargo 737. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z49i6vpM5Is&t=2640s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lztqIM0aTTs

IAS in the aircraft (your big analogue speedometer) is measured by a pitot tube sticking out the side of the aircraft, the tube simply measures the pressure of the air against a sensor as you move through the air and changes this to an indicated air speed (very basic terms). Imagine you are in a car, doing 100mph, you don't know what speed your going, your blindfolded and ear muffs on, stick you hand out the window and guess the speed, about 100mph you would say. Now drive your car at 100mph across a bridge at 36'000ft, do the same test, you would probably guess your speed as 50mph, your doing 100mph, but the air is thin so it feels much less. This is why your IAS is showing 250kts only, because the air is less dense. So if you are doing 300kts IAS at 200ft above ground, and there is no wind, your ground speed is also 300, and your TAS is 300. If you go the exact same speed at 30'000ft, you ground speed is 300kt, but your IAS will only show 200kts as the air is thin and not pushing so hard against the sensor, so you have this "false" reading so to speak. On the 737, have a look at the top corner of the ND and you can see the ground speed reading, you will see while cruising at Mach 0.71 and 254kts, that your ground speed is over 400kts, so all is fine. Thats why its important not to chase after IAS as you climb and descent as you might overspeed the aircraft. You will climb at 280kts, then as you get closer to your cruise height, you will see the FMC changes from targeting IAS to target a Mach number. This is because at at 200ft, 280kts is maybe Mach 0.5, but at 26'000ft, 280kts is Mach 0.71 so it switches to Mach 0.71 at 26'000ft as you continue to climb. Your Mach then stays 0.71 as you climb, you are not speeding up or slowing down, but your IAS gets lower and lower as the air thins out, but your not slowing down If you could just keep climbing, you would get an IAS that goes all the way down to ZERO, as there is no more air, but you might be going MACH 36 like a rocket. It's hard to explain clearly, everyone is totally confused by it at some point in the virtual or real flying, but once it clicks, you will understand.

I think climb speeds are about 300kts then at 26k it switches to Mach, typical cruise is Mach 0.76 or there abouts, she is an aged lady so can’t go as fast as modern chicks. I would recommend learning the fmc as much as possible as it will set the correct Mach for you, it will tell you your most optimal cruise height for your weight etc. it can be daunting but it’s worth watching some tutorials on it.

Hi Steve There is no black and white answer to your question. I use a few general rules, and I use various methods for descent. VNAV descent works fine for me, the initial descent from cruise can be quite steep, the throttles will slow the aircraft down slightly to descent mach number, then the aircraft pitches down to maintain speed, what I see is on the pitch down, the speed is often slightly low, so the initial descent can go up to -6000 ft per min for about 10 seconds, then it corrects itslef to a more normal level. I don't know if this is what the real aircraft does, and thats what Jan is referring to. As far as I know, a common way to descent (in real life) and the way I do it is to select V/S mode about 10nm before TOD, select -500ft, then -1000ft, then as you start to intercept the descent path, you can select VNAV and it should result in a more gradual descent. If you ever descent in V/S all the way down, be aware to change the MCP from mach to KTS at the typical cross over altitude, 26'000ft . You don't want to have a high mach number in the MCP at low altitudes. It's handy to understand how VNAV switches from targeting a speed in kts, to targeting a speed in mach. You can search mach cross over speed to learn more. For descent speed, the FMC will tell you the target descent mach, typically slightly under the cruise mach. This is a good speed to use for your initial descent. For heights, there are a few things you need to check. First is check the STAR you are flying, there might be height restrictions in that. If you have selected the STAR in the FMC, the restrictions should already be there, and can be seen in the LEGS page of the FMC. It's a good idea to check these before you even takeoff, put the FMC in LEGS page, put the ND in PLAN mode and then you can see right side lower select key in now a STEP function, you can step through your whole flight plan and see all waypoints, with speed and height restrictions if any showing on the right hand side of the FMC. Getting this plan correct is key to a smooth flight. However, you can also fly all the speed and height restrictions with no help from the FMC. You should always be aware of where your TOD should be, this is also important for the IXEG 737 as the FMC can sometimes throw a wobbly and give you TOD 500nm from your destination so it's good to be aware of that. A general rule is to mutiple your cruise alt by x3, then use that as the number of NM for your descent, so if you are at 36'000ft, and you want to descent to 0ft, multiply 36 x 3, start your descent 108nm away. For height restrictions, check the STAR, there may be restrictions like cross TLA at FL070, so if you are at 32'000ft, and you want to cross TLA FL070, then thats a descent of 25'000ft, multiple 25x3 and you should start your descent 75nm from TLA. A good feature of the aircrtaft is the green arc, when you descend, the green arc shows you at what point you will reach your altitude you have selected in your MCP. A very powerful tool, so if you get a cross TLA at 070 restriction (from the STAR or from ATC instruction, just put 7000ft into the MCP, then set the V/S until you see the green arc over TLA, then you know you will reach TLA at 7000ft, if the arc is a bit beyond TLA, just increase your V/S slightly. For speed restrictions, 250kts below 10'000ft generally, this speed restriction is often broken in area's where there are not so many aircraft, although in most area's it's a hard restriction. I use FR24 to see what typical speeds are below 10'000ft. Taking the 737 back from the USA with Norwegian, above 250kts on climb out is often ok, same in Scotland where pilots will often ask for any speed restrictions and will be told negative, so I descend at 280kts below 10'00ft. Just one notes, try NOT to play around with speed restrictions in the FMC once you are in the air, this for me seems to be the most common cause of the VNAV function to go crazy and give you incorrect TOD's. Set up any speed restriction before takeoff. Use the CLB page, I typically set the 280/ the CLB page here. Lastly, remember you also have LVL CHG button, this is very handy to use if you want to descent with idle thrust (and th VNAV has gone a bit crazy), you can use LVL CHG, you just need to be aware the this mode is ignoring any height restrictions and speed restrictions from the FMC, so you need to monitor that yourself. Cheers