Hello, I’m Mike. Ima real life 737 3/4/800 Cpt. I had bought the 737 to use because I’m off for my health reasons. I noticed a few flaws in the programming with the Aircraft and FMC.
#1. as you are on take off roll at 80 kts, the dual que command bars do not come up. The the command switch on, on the MCP panel, must be on. They come on to insure 2nd climb segment and pitch 15* in case of an engine failure. As long as you have your heading bug on the runway of use, you will get guidance. At 400 AGL, is when you either select Lnav or heading select on the MCP for course guidance. At 1000’ AGL is you power call out. Either Vnav on the MCP or climb thrust, speed 210,220, 230 and selecting N1 on the MCP and when you have cleaned up “ flaps up” you select Vnav. Then once you have these selected, your command bars will now have a pitch and roll mode.
#2 The FMC.
there are a few good flaws that differ from the real aircraft. Let’s say you would like to descend and cross a fix, let’s say 20 miles from the fix at a certain altitude. You would put the fix in the scratch pad. Ie. IWA/-20 and select it on the fix with the left buttons it will come up. And then on the right side buttons you would speed and altitude ie. 240/10000 and select EXC. then go to your descent page, on that page, you will see the fix and V/S ie.1800 fpm. A top of descent ie. 30 miles where you can use the Vnav option and select Descent now “ that option does no exist on your FMC” wait till get to TOD on its own “ which I don’t like. It puts the aircraft at a 3000’ FPM descent. Or, you can use you V/S mode “ Vertical Speed. “ I use this mode quite a bit when I am flying into and airport with a STAR and I can control the V/S ie. Let say your descent page says 1700 fpm, I would select 1800 fpm for nice comfortable ride” This option on your FMC does not exist :(
Please fell free to contact me
thank you and have a good one
Mike Maxham
B737 Captain