Litjan

In general, airline pilots like to fly as fast as possible and as high as possible. They former saves time, the latter saves fuel - both is money . So speed wise we like to fly at ECON speed as long as possible (or close to VMO if late on schedule). However there is often a speed limit below 10.000 feet (250kts) and also collision avoidance and birdstrike hazard is an issue, so I refrain from flying faster than 250 when lower than 8000 feet AGL, even if the airspace structure allows it. Most of the time ATC will slow you down as you get closer to the airfield, often to 220. If unencumbered by any of the above I will slow down "just in time" before descending on the glideslope (10NM, 3000AGL, 180kts with Flaps 5). My rule of thumb is "almost 1 NM per 10 kts deceleration" - so if I come in at 250kts I will start the deceleration at "almost" 7 NM prior to that. The lighter you are, the faster you will decelerate...so with a light aircraft 5NM will be enough, with a heavy one 6.5. Also consider head/tailwind component. Cheers, Jan

Happy to hear that the descent calculator works out for you! And once you used it a few times you will have memorized the altitude/distance relation and work the problem in your head...like most line pilots do, too. (We cheat and use the metric altimeter - 33.000 feet = 10.000m => 100NM)

It gets used in climbs and cruise - and it can be of limited use in descents, especially calculating the optimum T/D for the first restriction (Cross XXX at or below xxxx feet) - but it is very rare that you can really fly the planned path all the way to the intermediate approach fix (it can happen in "progressive" countries with little air traffic like Sweden or Norway).

I stopped flying the Classics in 2012 and transferred to the Airbus 320 family - surprisingly the use of the managed descent mode (DES) on the A320 is even less than we used VNAV PTH on the 737... Nowadays the ATC structure changes a bit towards STARS and SIDS that have more restrictions - ATC hopes to lessen workload because the planes will move inside a "virtual tunnel", separating from each other by virtue of altitude restrictions. A famous arrival here in Germany was the EMPAX3W STAR to EDDF, but it did not go beyond the trial phase because pilots failed to meet the restrictions too many times (unfamiliar with how to properly fly managed descents, erroneous behaviour of the FMS,...). Cheers, Jan

Have you watched this episode? I show how to use the "descent calculator" that I made for the avitab plugin - it basically does for you what airline pilots do in their head all the time when planning and executing an approach: Estimate total distance remaining to the airport - then calculating the altitude one should be at for an idle power approach: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSemWBgRNnE Cheers, Jan

Hi, VNAV descents are considered to be WIP. They work somewhat, the more simple the descent path, the better. Add multiple and/or complex restrictions and things will start going south. We fully intend to improve this in an update - for what its worth I can safely say that the VNAV PTH descent mode was rarely used in the real 737 Classics and most pilots used FL CHG or V/S to perform their descent. The example you describe (not flying the correct speed) is a very typical thing that happens in the real airplane, too. The VNAV path is preplanned with a lot of assumptions, and sometimes those don´t work out (different wind, for example). The aircraft will try to adhere to the PATH more than to the speed it planned with - and when I used (rarely) the VNAV PTH function in the real aircraft I often had to "help" the plane by using the speedbrake. If speed becomes excessive, VNAV will disconnect and then the pilot has to pick up the shards of the shattered approach ;-) Cheers, Jan

I don´t exactly recall the problem PilotTris had, but I believe it involved another account being active on his computer previously. There could be some legitimate reasons for it, like if you bought the computer from someone who had a X-Aviation account registered to that machine. The only solution is to submit a single request for support on the official X-Aviation support line with a true, honest and precise account why there was another account associated with your computer previously. Cheers, Jan

The CFM56 engine we modeled is RATED to 20K thrust. It can put out much more, but that would mean going beyond it´s rated limit (and possibly damaging the engine). The pilot is responsible to not strain the engine too much (with the help of the PMC and FMC). This means that at sea level ISA conditions, you should not run the N1 higher than 90.5% to gain 20K thrust. Cheers, Jan

https://www.skybrary.aero/index.php/Fuel_-_Flight_Planning_Definitions

Awesome! Happy landings! Cheers, Jan

Great to hear that, thanks for the feedback! If you can´t see the "ghost throttles" (move hardware throttle rapidly to trigger them), make sure you don´t have that feature turned off by accident in the preferences menu (bump left screen to access it). Cheers, Jan

I am not an expert in computer things, but it seems that the license file could not be written to your harddisk. Maybe you don´t have the administrator rights to save/read files in the folder that the license data is saved?

Hi, after you disconnect the autothrottle you must "regain control" of them by moving your joystick throttle until the "ghost image throttles" match the position of the throttle indicator. At that point you can see the 3D throttles in the cockpit move again. Do this in time before touchdown - normally the pilot should not fly manually with the autothrottle still in control. We say "Manual flight = manual throttle!" If you leave the autopilot engaged during landing, it will automatically enter the "RETARD" mode at 27feet - even while in manual flight. 2 seconds after touchdown it will disarm automatically - but this procedure is only recommended for automatic landings with both autopilots engaged. Cheers, Jan

Hi arenaza, It is hard to determine from your description and your screenshot what is going on. Normally - if the license activation is not sucessfull - you will see the pilots figure when in the cockpit. It is strange however that your activation box keeps popping up, normally it should not do that if the activation was successfull. Maybe the data does not get saved and you have some file access rights problem on your computer. Your picture shows some instruments powered, others are dark (like the navigation display below the artificial horizon). This is very unusual and maybe some other plugin or software interferes. I would try to uninstall both the aircraft and Gizmo (found in the Resources/plugins folder) and then reinstall both. Make sure you remove all other plugins and third-party programs (temporarily) to see if they cause the interference. Once the 737 works, add them back in to see which one causes the problem (unless the activation of the license was the problem). Cheers, Jan

Hi, I don´t really know what advice to give you - besides the obvious, like turning up the volume, setting up the speficic audio levels in the PREFERENCES menu correctly, making sure your hardware works correctly, Windows and X-Plane and all drivers being up to date, etc. We have heard infrequent reports of some folks with specific audio hardware running out of sound channels, so they can not hear some sounds like the radar altimeter counting down, but we have never had a report like yours... Cheers, Jan

https://forums.x-pilot.com/forums/topic/17981-version-133-known-bugs-and-workarounds/ https://forums.x-pilot.com/forums/topic/16091-ixeg-733-development-status/?page=2&tab=comments#comment-161748 Cheers, Jan

There is no change in rate of progress to report. Cheers, Jan

My reply was strictly limited to the A318 suggestion...but it extends to all other Airbus models as well. As for other aircraft - sure, it could be possible. We will stay with X-Plane (if that was what you were hinting at with the "changing environment"). Going to another simulator is just as out of the question as doing an Airbus model .

No - that is not going to happen...ever.

Again, I am unfortunately not an expert on these things. We use the basic, default datarefs for throttle and other controls (brake, speedbrake, flaps, etc.) interaction, though - so theoretically there should be no problem interfacing with our 737 if it works on the default one. Cheers, Jan

Hi William, I really have no experience with that - but I can offer the advice that some versions of FSUIPC are not compatible with the IXEG - they make the throttle not responsive. But some are... We offer the functionality to assign each thrust lever to a separate throttle axis. Cheers, Jan

Let me expand a bit on this: The VNAV part of our descent calculation is not perfect yet. It can work on simple descents, but will not handle multiple or complex restrictions, nor will it factor in head- or tailwind. This may cause the VNAV calculations/predictions to be erroneous and the pilot needs to monitor the distance/altitude/energy state of the aircraft and revert to selected modes (FL CHG, V/S, manual flight) as warranted. There is a "descent calculator helpsheet" included in the documents for the AviTab free add-on in the airplane to help with calculating the descent profile. Here is some more reading regarding the state of the current version: https://forums.x-pilot.com/forums/topic/8526-things-that-are-not-going-to-be-in-v133/ https://forums.x-pilot.com/forums/topic/18101-faq-for-new-users/ and some videos I made recently: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJJ1M9epDJiGKmXConLp3Ew

Hi, I have tested our plane in 11.53 and have not noticed any change in the sound effects - nothing is impossible, but the changes to 11.53 should not have any effect on the sounds. One possible solution would be to delete everything in your folder Output/Preferences (this will also delete your joystick/keyboard settings) and run the X-Plane Installer again. Cheers, Jan

Not sure.

Ok, I believe you.