FMS' How to

[WombatBoy]

Okay so I've been hearing a lot and reading a lot about these FMS things and I know that they control your flight via waypoints and stuff but I've got no idea on how to do any of that. Would anyone be willing to point me to a tutorial that explains this or explain it themselves.

They way I fly now is I calculate my heading based on latitude and longitude of the two destinations and then fly there on the autopilot heading mode. I'd be thrilled if this was a simpler way cause my way right now takes too long to figure out and I usually have to do some serious adjustments of the heading mid flight which means I have to monitor it.

Would anyone be so kind as to explain it to me with just the default X-Plane FMS or a (preferable free) plane with a good FMS. Or if there's a place where this is explained that would be awesome. I just learned how to do the VOR stuff last weekend, I'm getting more and more into the whole navigation aspect of flying and I think this is something that would be very important to master.

Cheers

[Zach Decou]

The default FMS in X-Plane is very simple and easy to use. I have no experience with more advanced    systems, but I can tell you quickly how to use the default FMS.

If you are manually entering waypoints:

1. Press "init". This automatically enters your current lat/lon position as the first waypoint. 

2. Select the type of waypoint you will be entering first. The choices are "airp", "fix", "vor", "ndb", etc.

3. Type in the ICAO, lat/lon, or identifier of the waypoint.

4. Press the soft key next to the altitude line and enter the altitude you wish to be at when crossing the above entered waypoint. This stage is optional. Leaving it 00000 will not affect your flight unless you want AP to track the FMS. Say you have 06500 on one way point, 00000 on the next, and 05000 on the third, the AP will not plunge the aircraft to 0' msl, but rather maintain 6500'. To have the aircraft follow the FMS in the vertical plane, you must be equipped with a "VNAV" selector on your autopilot. This means of course Vertical NAVigation. 

5. Press "next" and repeat steps 2-4.

If you just want to get from point A to B, only enter the destination airport as a waypoint and don't bother setting an altitude.

To have the AP track your FMS, you must have a source switch labeled "nav 1, nav 2, gps". Select gps and make sure you have AP turned on.

If at any point you want to skip ahead in your flight plan and divert to a specific waypoint, use prev and next to bring up the desired waypoint, and press the direct to button (has a D with an arrow through it).

After you have entered a flight plan,

you may save it by pressing, suprise, "save". You may load a saved plan... You know the rest.

I may have left something out or mistaken something as I am not at my machine. If this is the case, I will correct shortly.

Hope this helps. 

[Kaphias]

You did almost exactly what I did for long flights until I figured out how to use it. The method I use now is much faster and easier:

Press "Init" (initiate plan)

Press "Airp" (airport)

Type, or click I guess, the ICAO code of your destination airport

Takeoff, AP on to v/s, climb speed, whatever else you would normally use

--If the direction you took-off in is more than, say, 90 degrees of the direction to your destination, use heading mode to line it up.

"Source" knob to GPS/FMC

Press "LOC" (localizer I assume)

Press "EXEC" (execute)

You can use the same method to plug in multiple points if you wish (useful for lining up with the runway)

You may find this site to be helpful.

EDIT: I got beat! A little different method, but either works.

[Zach Decou]

Thanks Kaphias, you filled in a couple of gaps I left. Forgot about execute button and loc mode on the AP. Doh!

[WombatBoy]

Ah thank you guys soo much! I'm glad to hear I'm not the only one doing it old way I will definitely be trying this out tomorrow

[garrettm30]

If you would like further help, I wouldn't mind chatting with you one day to walk you through it. It's the selecting of the appropriate route that is harder than programing the FMS. Of course, you could just get it to go from one airport to another. It's not realistic (until a fully GPS-based navigation takes over in IFR), but if you just don't care about IFR navigation, then that is fine. It really just comes down to what you want to do. That's an advantage of a simulator, after all!

[WombatBoy]

Garrett that would be great. Maybe you could shoot me a PM and we'll talk about it Thanks for the help guys, I tried a quick one today from KMBS to KDTW...I couldn't find the "EXEC" button but oh well. It came up with a big red line and a green double arrow thing on the map, I followed the green thing and it was very close, should I have followed the red thing?

Also do I set the AP to "on" or "engage"? If I do it right will it automatically fly the heading for me or do I have to use the  HDG mode on the autopilot to fly a route that it shows me? Sorry if all this is real obvious to you guys, it isn't for me

[garrettm30]

I'd be happy to help however I can. Check your messages, as I sent you a PM, or at least I think I did.

[Kaphias]

Bummer that we don't have the ability to upload videos here, I'd be happy to do that. Might just end up posting it on the .org if I do one.

[Simmo W]

Hey kaphias, yeah u can post vids in the forum, just create a new topic and away you go. Would be good to see such vids. :-*

[WombatBoy]

AHA! I got it to work! My CRJ700 (now with an Air India paint) is en route to Hyderabad from Dubai - no planning required! I'm so happy

[Kaphias]

Hey kaphias, yeah u can post vids in the forum, just create a new topic and away you go. Would be good to see such vids. :-*

Ah I see, had to open additional options... thanks!