Flight One Software / DreamFleet 2000 This section provides detailed descriptions and
examples of pre-flighting and flying with the FMC.
This tutorial flight was written by Elmar Calbo to help users understand the FMC and its use within the product.
The Flight One Software and Dreamfleet 2000 development team with like to thank Elmar for the great job he has done on this section and all the help it has provided to the users.
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Flight One Software / DreamFleet 2000
Amsterdam, Schiphol to London Heathrow in the Greatest Airliners: The 737-400 A short introduction to flying with the FMC by Elmar Calbo, August 11 2001, The Netherlands
(For use the FMC version 1.2.0 or above)
INTRODUCTION
The purpose of this introductory flight is to show you one way of flying the DF737. With the complexity of this airplane, there are many ways to accomplish the same goal, which in our case is performing a take-off from runway 19L at Amsterdam Schiphol and a landing at runway 27L at London Heathrow. We will use a standard departure and arrival and follow a direct route between them.
We will not look at standard checklists, which are compulsory for a good reason for real pilots, but just do some quick checks prior to take-off to ensure we have an aircraft that can fly us safely to our destination, nor will we do a taxi. By using the PMCG, we can be ready to fly very fast, as you will see.
I am by no means a pilot in real life nor a flightsim expert, I just enjoy flying the DF737 from Schiphol to London safely, having a great flight and experience too thanks to the good folks of both DreamFleet2000 and Flight1, who brought us the Greatest Airliners: The 737-400 package.
Let’s move on to getting this flight to depart on time!
SETUP
With FS2000 running, jump to the 19L runway at Schiphol. If you want you can set the time, date and some clouds, but do not add any winds. We want to make sure that Mother Nature does not interfere with our flying skills until we have fully mastered the flight. Once you are happy with the environment and aligned on the runway select
your favourite DF737 from the Aircraft menu.
For this introductory flight we need an aircraft with all systems and engines running. Get rid off the yoke, open the overhead panel and confirm that the green Taxi light is illuminated on the PMCG (top left) panel. If it is not, that means you are running the DF737 in another mode, which we do not want at this time, so if the green Taxi light is off, select it first, then select another aircraft (not another DF737, but a LearJet45 for example) and then switch back to the DF737.
At the moment of writing this, there is a small bug around which can cause both the EHSI and EADI to be blank at times. If that is the case, the most likely reason is a problem with the electrics.
If the EHSI/EADI are blank, open the overhead panel and check the electrical panel on the lower left side. If all the bus lights are illuminated (4 lights will have yellow characters, and you will notice Low Pressure lights illuminated all over the other panels as well) we have found the problem and can fix it by re-connecting the busses by clicking the switches for Gen1, ApuGen and Gen2. This will most likely fix the EHSI/EADI. The 4 lights that were illuminated should be off.
Now we will load up our fuel for the flight, from the FS2000 Aircraft menu, select Fuel and use 50% for the center tank, and 30% in each wing tank, we do not need full tanks for this flight, and keeping them on 100% will have us arriving a very heavy bird. Please note that loading the fuel as described above will not cause any problems in this simulator, but in real life we would fill our wing tanks to full and add the additional amount of fuel needed for the flight to the center tank.
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Okay, now we are sure our aircraft was started in Taxi mode, the fuel was set and we are on Runway 19L at Schiphol, let’s close the overhead panel and move on to the next bit.
SETTING UP THE FMC
The Flight Management Computer included in the DF737 is a lot of help while flying. Not only is it able to steer the aircraft along a preset route, using a VNAV and LNAV mode, it will help us setting V1/VR speeds and determine the correct landing speed as well. There is actually a lot more about it, but you will find out quick enough when using it.
On this flight, I could say we will be using the FMC to it’s fullest, but once you understand what it is capable off you will call me crazy for saying that and have it make coffee for you. We will not utilize the FIX or HOLD functions for example.
Start the FMC by pressing the hotspot on the lower right of the main panel. If you don’t know where that hotspot is, it looks just like a FMC.
Once the FMC is started we can take it in and out off view by either pressing the hotspot again or using the Tab key. Do not close the FMC through it’s own right click menu as that will not bring it out of view but terminate it completely!
A LSK is a Line Select Key, and the FMC has a row of 6 LSK’s on the left and the same on the right. Input to the FMC can be done through the FMC’s keypad or by pressing the Scroll Lock key, which will map your own keyboard to the FMC. If you choose for the Scroll Lock method, remember to disengage it after you are done!
When your keyboard is mapped to the FMC, the green light in the top left corner will illuminate.
Whatever input method you use, your input will be taken to the scratchpad first, and can than be entered into the FMC by using the LSK’s as we will see later on.
The FMC starts on the IDENT page, which holds nothing we want to change.
Click the right LSK6 to take us to the POS INIT page.
We will need to let the FMC know where we are, so enter EHAM (which is the ICAO code for Schiphol) into the scratchpad and select it into the FMC by pressing left LSK2 (Ref Airport). As you will see, the FMC will pick up the position.
Click the right LSK6 to go to the ROUTE page.
This is where we will start setting our entire route, from the departing to the arrival runway.
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Enter EHAM into the scratchpad and select into left LSK1 to set our origin.
Enter EGLL (the ICAO code for London Heathrow) into the scratchpad and select into right LSK1 for our destination.
Click the left LSK3 to take us to the EHAM Departures page.
On this page we will see all the available
runways, so we need to find our runway, which is 19L. This can be found on the second page, so click the Next Page button to display that page.
You will see 19L listed here in the first position.
Click the right LSK1 to select runway 19L.
Once done, it will show <SEL> in front of 19L.
Click the right LSK6 to go to the Route page.
We have set our departing runway, and will now have to do the same for our arrival.
Click on DepArr for the Dep/Arr Index page.
Click on the right LSK2 to go to the EGLL Arrivals.
As you will see, the navigational database supplied with the DF737 holds both runways and standard arrivals for London Heathrow. We will use a standard arrival, and later on we will manually program a standard departure route as well.
Click on left LSK5 to select the BIG3C arrival.
Click on the right LSK5 to select runway 27L.
Click on left LSK2 to select DVR for our
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Transition. This is not shown in the picture above (this is where we will have our route pick up the standard arrival)
The FMC will create a Runway Extension point at the distance set in right LSK3, which is set at 12 nautical miles and is fine for us. You can shorten this distance a bit or if you would like a little more time to stabilize for the approach, lengthen it. The default 12nm is good though, so we will not change it.
Click on right LSK6 to go back to the Route page.
As you can see, the Route now uses 2 pages. It is now set to fly direct to waypoint DVR (which is Dover) and then use the BIG3C route to BIG.
Press the Next Page button to go to page 2.
Here we see the next hop, which is again the BIG3C route, this time to RX-27 (our fix for the runway) and then direct to Runway 27L. The waypoint MA-27 below the RW27L is one we hopefully will not be flying to, as that is our missed approach point.
Okay, we are going to use a standard departure (SID) as well, and even though the navigational database for the DF737 does have them for EHAM, we will do those manually to familiarize ourselves with the procedure of adding
waypoints.
On the legs page you will see that the first waypoint currently in our route is DVR.
We will add a few here
We will use a standard Valko departure, and have to set the waypoints for it on the Legs page manually, so press the Legs button first.
On the legs page you will see that the first waypoint currently in our route is DVR.
We will add a few here.
Enter EH029 into the scratchpad and click left LSK1.
This will add the waypoint EH029 to our route, above the waypoint previously at LSK1.
Enter EH009 into the scratchpad and click left LSK2.
Enter VALKO into the scratchpad and click left LSK3.
If all went well, our route is now EH029 – EH009 – VALKO – DVR – LYD – TIGER – BIG12 – BIG – RX-27L – RW27L – MA27 (Again, use the Next Page and Previous Page buttons to walk through the pages)
Go to the PERF INIT page by clicking right LSK6
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We will now finalize pre-flighting the FMC. The FMC will use the data we now enter to calculate the altitudes and speeds at our waypoints. You might have noticed that some were already filled in on the legs page and others were not. Let the FMC take care of those.
On the PERF INIT page click left LSK1, this will automatically check the Zero Fuel Weight of our aircraft, add the fuel and calculate our Gross Weight. This feature is not found on real aircrafts, but put in the DF737 FMC for our convenience, and actually, it is a feature I much appreciate.
Enter 5 into the scratchpad and click left LSK4
This sets our reserve fuel at 5000lbs. Although on our panel we can switch from lbs to kgs, the
FMC cannot and operates in lbs mode only.
Dreamfleet has stated this will be updated.
Now, our cruising altitude. For a flight as short as this one, we will use a cruise altitude of 15000ft.
Enter 15000 into the scratchpad and select into right LSK1.
In Europe, which is where our flight will be taking place, the transition altitude is 6000ft instead of the 18000ft used in the United States.
Enter 6000 into the scratchpad and select into right LSK5.
If the FMC requires information not yet inputted to perform, it will show boxes, if the information is optional, it displays ---. As you can see, the other items on the Perf Init page are optional, they all show ---‘s and we will not input anything there on this flight.
The Exec button has illuminated indicating we need to push that to activate our input, so click the Exec button.
Click right LSK6 to go to the Takeoff page On the TAKEOFF PAGE will have to input the current temperature of our departure airport in Celsius.
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Enter 20 into the scratchpad and select into left LSK1.
As you can see, the FMC has now calculated the V1, VR and V2 speed. We have to transfer those to our EADI and clicking the corresponding LSK’s does this.
Click right LSK1, 2 and 3 and notice the EADI displays V1 137.
Almost done with the FMC now. As you can see our Pre-Flt Status still displays something to do at the Route page.
Click right LSK4 to go to the route page
Notice that the page now holds an ACTIVATE
prompt at right LSK6.
Click right LSK6 and click the Exec button to activate our changes.
You can check the route we will follow by going to the Legs page by clicking the Legs button.
Notice that the FMC has calculated speeds and altitudes for our waypoints.
If you want to save the flight plan we just
created, click right LSK3 on the ROUTE pages to go to the Flt Plan Import/Export page, enter a filename in the scratchpad and select into right LSK3.
Our FMC pre-flight is now complete, so we can close the FMC by pressing the tab key or hotspot. If you used the Scroll Lock method to map your keyboard to the FMC, make sure you turn this off now and confirm the green light in the upper left corner of the FMC goes out!
Here is some info about our route before we go to the next bit. We will use the MCP altitude to hold the climb at 6000ft until we pass waypoint VALKO and then allow a climb to 15000ft, which will be our cruising altitude. Around waypoint LYD we will set the MCP altitude to 3400ft which will allow the FMC to start descending
somewhere between waypoint LYD and TIGER as per it’s scheduled descend as seen on the
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legs page. If we would not reset our altitude, the MCP would restrict the FMC from descending. It is very important that you change altitudes on the MCP but do not activate them by using Lvl Chg or V/S modes! Let the FMC do the work on this flight. As you will see, even though the FMC has set much higher altitudes at waypoint along our route, we can and will use the MCP to limit it on this flight.
Somewhere around waypoint BIG12 we will take over the vertical path from the FMC and at waypoint BIG we will thank it for it’s services and take care off the horizontal profile as well.
SETTING UP THE AIRCRAFT
We are now ready to set-up the aircraft and the first thing we do is open up the center radio console.
First change both nav radios to Auto by clicking their illuminated buttons (which now show Man).
Notice that the caption changes to Auto and the displayed manual frequencies are crossed out.
We will be arriving at London Heathrow
runway27L and use an ILS approach, which will guide our aircraft to the runway both vertically and horizontally. We will need at least one of our navradio’s tuned to the ILS27L frequency, and if you would go and try an autoland, we will need to tune both of them to that frequency. It doesn’t hurt to tune both (even though we will not autoland in this flight), so change both manual frequencies to 109.50. Leave the radios in Auto mode though.
While we are at the center console, we will change the display mode on the EHSI to Map and the range to 20nm. Notice that the EHSI will now display our route.
Close the center console and open the overhead.
Turn on the landing lights, close the overhead and open the gear panel.
On the gearpanel we will set the autobrakes to RTO (Rejected Take Off). Notice the Autobrk Disarm light go on and off. If we decide to abandon the takeoff on the runway, closing the throttles to idle will trigger the autobrakes.
On the MCP select the F/D to on and the A/T to arm. An FD notice will show on the FMA (Flight Mode Annunciator) on the EADI and a green light will illuminate next to the A/T switch.
Set the IAS/MACH to 250kts.
Set the heading to 186. This is the heading for the runway. It is good practice to set the MCP heading to follow the FMC route. This is not necessary for correct operation of the FMC, but just good practice in case the FMC goes AWOL and we want to use Hdg Sel mode.
Set the altitude to 6000ft. This is the restricted altitude until we reach waypoint Valko. By setting this altitude, it will prevent the FMC from climbing any higher until we dial in a higher altitude, which will then allow it to climb again.
Select Autopilot A.
Our MCP is now correctly set up. Please note that we have not bothered with the course button.
Select flaps 5 and confirm this on the gear panel, there will be a co-pilot callout as well.
TAKEOFF
Well, it looks like we are ready to go flying.
o Smoothly push the throttles forward and allow the engines to stabilize at 40% N1.
o Release the parking brakes.
o Hit the TOGA switch and notice that the EADI displays TOGA and the F/D crosshair comes on.
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o At VR smoothly pull back on the yoke to start rotation and once clear from the runway increase your attitude to around 15 degrees.
o Confirm positive rate, i.e. the altimeter running up, and select Gear Up.
o At or above 400ft radio altitude (as displayed on the EADI) select LNAV and VNAV, they will both illuminate. The FMC will now take over flying the airplane and you will see the mode changes on the FMA (check the EADI display) and notice the FMC following the planned course.
o Select Autobrakes to off and close the gear panel.
o Select Flaps 2 at 160kts o Select Flaps 1 at 200kts
o Select Flaps 2 at 160kts o Select Flaps 1 at 200kts