Iain

The beauty of simming, you are the captain and can do it what ever way you like! Like you, I don't mind using other modes more often as it keeps you on your toes with your planning. I know a couple of Easyjet pilots from frequent flying, they live near my house in Scotland, was sitting in the cockpit during a long boarding the other week, chatting for 30mins about this and that, "playing" with the MCDU and various other controls, asked him about VNAV use, or autopilot use in general after takeoff, he said a lot depends on weather and how tired they are, that flight was their last for the day and VNAV goes on asap after takeoff! He knew the 737 classic cockpit so we had a great chat about the quirks of each aircraft, he also said the A320 cockpit has more space than a 747...need to look that up sometime as seems hard to believe.

I use VNAV rarely on climb, sometimes in cruise, sometimes on descent and hardly ever on approach. My current base for all flights is EGPH (Edinburgh Scotland), nearly all SIDS have a height restriction of 6000ft at some waypoint on the SID, often quite far from the departure. There is also the 250kt rule under 10'000ft. In really life, ATC will more than likely give a no speed and height restriction soon after takeoff. In the PMDG, the FMC deals with all these small, on the fly rule changes without any problem, but I have issues with the IGEX version. If I use FL CH and climb about 10'000ft and wait until I am passed the waypoint with the height restriction of 6000ft, and I then switch to VNAV, you are not on the profile the FMC expect, the VNAV goes nuts basically, trying to slow you down from 300kts to 250kts or less, Then to follow, it's often hard to get the autopilot to behave in any way at all, HDG select, V/S modes won't engage, or they do engage in cruise but after a few minutes they disengage. Also I find the VNAV climb speeds and descent speeds are slow, even with a CI change, they seem to stay the same. Changing the target speed helps, but then the speed seems to drift high from the new target speed after a few minutes. Maybe some user error from my side in there, it' doesn't take away any enjoyment of the aircraft for me, this thing has heaps more atmosphere than any plane I have ever flown (simmer for 30 years, 1000 hrs on PMDG). So I look forward to the future updates! Cheers Iain

I use something very similar. I just compared my fuel calculation to yours, but I see your formula is a bit messed up, it is always around 9000kg, the further you go the less fuel you need. I think there is a typo somewhere in there.

Excellent videos. Hope to post some of my own adventures with this aircraft soon. Many flights around Scotland and the UK over winter should make some interesting landings!

I just saw they are green tinted, you can see the eyebrow window in a support thread for the logo light.

Sounds like fun and a great charity to help. Will keep an eye on the live stream once you post a link and will check out the donation page.

Look great, turning onto finals at for RW 05 at Inverness last night, I could have done with these to hand fly the localizer interception. I noticed they are blanked off on the current ac. Are these tinted in any way? Going by the "what is not in 1.0" thread, the eyebrow windows were a very low priority, I guess you made some good progress in other areas

I know the situation, when my 3 year old daughter sleeps better, I can take videos, post in the bug forum etc etc No complaints from me, I haven't put much effort in to fixing it, maybe I should not presume its all to do with 1.07. Thanks for all the help, I will have a closer look as soon as possible. Cheers Iain

Since 1.07 I have only tried 2 flights, both impossible to complete. Before 1.07 it was much more solid. By MCP problems I mean problems with the autopilot. On any flight I try, I can not input a basic flight plan in to the FMC, any selection of STAR causes the FMC to crash, then various buttons become inactive and the route can not by executed. I have never been able to save and load FMC routes already made, not sure if this is a known restriction. After every take off, the white box with code error from the FMC pops up, usually at around 100ft during climb out. During climb. eg 1000ft Vnav disables (with no warning) and then vs won't engange, MCP speed is stuck on mach, a lot of button pressing and it goes to knots eventually. Occasionally Level change will work, but I find that even in full manual mode and level flight at 8000ft for example, I can never get the autopilot on in speed hold, heading hold and alt hold. Alt hold simply wont engage, the vsi just falls away. When I can't get this lady to fly straight and level in any MCP mode, then I need to put her in the hanger for a while. I unistalled it, then ran the 1.00 installed, it downloads files from the net so I guess it installs as 1.07. I tried another flight, same problems. Happy to wait on 1.08. I had done around 15 other flights previous to 1.07 with only small issues so I presume it's the update, not saying I am using the MCP perfectly but there seems to be some issues. Happy to try any suggestions, happy to wait on the patch

Yeh, can not use the aircraft in the current state, FMC is buggy as heck, MCP too. But I'm patient, rather they take there time than rush!

If you are Scottish, then that is a great user name!

Would prefer other options, bug fixing etc before starting on a HUD project.

KMHT of coarse

Was planning a transatlantic soon, normal route is Glasgow to Manchester. Good fun in the PMDG, limit the bags a little and you get there with enough fuel to spare, as long as the winds are behaving. Distance around 2600nm, roughly the same as Cork - Boston. Hopefully this is possible in the future with this great bird, I would be more than happy to put up with some database delays if it meant it was possible

Hi Thanks for the advice. Reason I didn't pull throttles back for a RTO was because it was very low speed RTO so there was no panic, granted it is the wrong procedure. I will take note of the FD's as well, I left them on the whole time. For regaining manual control, I will try the trick with matching the ghost throttles for long enough, good chance I am not doing that. Happy flying.

Quick question. Scenario is to engage AT on entering runway, throttles to 40%, everything stable, TOGO, throttles move to TO power, then decide to do a rejected takeoff. AT off, rock the throttle full forward to idle and manual control back. Taxi back to runway, now I engage AT and the power always wants to go to TOGA? How do I cancel the first TOGO and allow me to press it again? Similar thing happened to me when landing at EGPF, approach was not stable, TOGO and went around from 500ft. Flew the missed approach with AT engaged, during next ILS approach, switched AT off at 500ft for a full manual landing, but throttles were not manual, they were stuck at 55%. Rocked the throttle, no luck, could never get manual control back no matter what. Landed at 170kts, got reverse on, but went off the end of RW05 and ended up bobbing up and down in the river Clyde! (quite realistic btw, but not the plan). Bugs or pilot error? Just completed a flight from KRDM to KOTH, as long as I never hit TOGO and the initial press, I am not having any issue. Was a great flight tonight, really loving the character of this ac and X-plane in general over FSX.

Got it! I am finding out the differences with the NG (you know from who) and this. I was suspecting a full deflection of the throttle was what I done to get the throttle under control. I won't activate it on the ground again I am really lucky in that I gave XP10 another go, I skipped the demo and bought it last week, stumbled across this ac (intending to buy it only to try the DC6) and I am in love with it. Simming since Tornado from Digital Integration in 1993 I have 1000's hours simming, and 100's of hrs on the PMDG 737. The ac is missing a few features, non that are very important to me, and non that take away enjoyment. The one thing I have found is this ac has an abundance of character, something that is not easy to program into a sim I guess, but it is just a joy to fly. Great sounds, great fun to hand fly, you feel the mass of the ac when flying, there is real inertia there. The little things like the dimming of light of the overheard when switches are flicked...amazing, the strip light under the MCP that flickers when it comes on, perfection! Millions to learn with XP10 but will only get better. Keep up the good work.

Did you post this in bugs? I can reproduce a very similar problem. If I press VNAV on the ground, then arm the AT, the throttle rise to takeoff thrust. They stay there even if I disarm the AT. Eventually they go back to idle and some sort of click combo and movement of the throttles although it is not clear. Question for me is, I know I should not press the VNAV on the ground, but if I do with AT armed, should the throttles rise? Surely for takeoff, the TOGA has to be pressed.