Leaderboard

Hi all. This COVID thing has affected my employment and sent me in a different direction.....full time back on X-Plane! (note...I work on more than just the 737 though) We are working on the update every day as of late; however, we are still going to wait for some 11.50 stability before we release. In the meantime, we're cleaning up things we feel we can without putting the plane in the hangar with the major renovations like the FMS/holds/VNAV. We are back in the FMS code somewhat though and have made the coroutes loading more robust. We will be including that folder in our update so as to not cause confusion, but we also now support about 6 flight plan formats, X-Plane 10/11 (*.fms), PMDG and Quality Wings (*.rte), X-FMC (*.fpl), FSX (*.pln) and AirbusX (*.flp). Like the real FMS, if a waypoint can't be located because of database incompatibilities with the flight plan, then the FMS loads what it can until encountering such a point and then provides the message, "PARTIAL ROUTE LOADED". I was testing this code with random format downloads from Flight plan database...and nearly all of those flight plans contain out of date data, so getting the FMS to load a full route was a challenge. I had to go in and hand edit the flight plan files to 'up-to-date' data. Once done though, they can be saved through the FMS as before. These coroute. loaders do not load SIDs/STARS, only the enroute portions, which is typical. As time goes on, I'll continue to work on improving the route editing, which will have applicability for the holds and eventual "in air" vnav entries. More to follow as we get closer to our release point. -tkyler

The fewer the bars, the lower the AoA. In normal cruise, 1 green bar is optimal AoA. While in the green, the aircraft will not stall, and you will not get a warning. While in the yellow bars, a stall is approaching/imminent. Red bars indicate the aircraft is stalling and action needs to be taken to recover.

For what it´s worth: When I was a young FO on the 737 I was flying along on a Captain´s candidate checkride. One flight was from EDDS Stuttgart to EDDF Frankfurt, and this was the one and only time when the FMC on that aircraft was INOP! Imagine his joy . Nevertheless, the FMC is a MEL item and can be inop (just like the autopilot or autothrottle...) - with some caveats, of course. We flew that flight (at least the whole SID) with conventional nav - but then soon were given vectors. But we often flew SID´s "conventional", just to stay proficient. Cheers, Jan

Hi guys! Many many thanks for taking the time to give your advice. For some reason I just couldn't get past the FMC. Funny thing is, I spent some time flying the B737-200 series, (when they were steam driven!) long before FMC! All I've ever known is VOR hopping, but somehow the I became so focused on the FMC, I lost sight of what to do! Many thanks again for shining the light guys! Very kind wishes Jim

The 737-300 is very good for flying "conventional IFR", with sole reference to terrestrial radio aids, more so than other more modern aircraft which will not intercept and track a VOR radial directly. It has two EHSIs, two RMIs and two DMEs. You can navigate without using the FMC at all (although I still use it for the performance calculations when flying "pure" IFR, not the lateral navigation). Tip: You can use the FIX page of the FMC to "draw" radials and arcs. It's very useful when flying procedures if you want to use the MAP mode without a magenta line; particularly the arc function to fly those dreaded DME arcs. Also very useful for drawing holds where you can setup the inbound radial for reference and the abeam to start the timer.

Press the red button on the Audio Panel

The Saab is fitted with a working steering tiller, that will remain locked unless you activate it. I'm guessing this might be the problem. Left side, the wheel just forward of the circuit breakers. Pushing it down will release the tiller. Pulling it up will lock it.