Bruce (a.k.a. brian747)

<grin> In my young days (OK, yeah, half a century ago so please be mind to me) people would say (and mean it) "The camera never lies". Something clearly went wrong, somewhere.... Cheers, B.

Hi, Graham! And a very warm welcome to the Hangar! Funny you should say that: I've watched the clip, ooh, no more than a hundred times or so (purely in the interests of research, you understand <*cough*> ) and I still can't see how it was done. I can only think that it was a product of sophisticated green-screen technology, but that could imply someone with access to movie-industry quality video equipment, or something/someone close to that level of hardware and editing knowledge, anyway. Maybe One Day The Tale Can Be Told? But a heartfelt ten out of ten to whoever p

Thank you, Brett. @Tristarcaptain My apologies if I was over-cryptic. Cheers, B.

Hi Jim! In PFPX if you request a quick plan you should find that a SID and a STAR have been automatically set up for you (on the basis of the weather known about at the time, of course). To view them, opt to Edit your flight plan (click the Edit icon in the Route section on the menu bar), and you will find the SID and STAR at the top of the list of waypoints. They're in dropdown boxes, too, so if you'd prefer to select your own regardless, all you have to do is click the dropdown arrow and select the one you want. (The usual caveat applies — don't forget to save your chan

Many thanks, guys! Yup, a good time was had. Even though (let's face it) it's a crap time of the year to have a birthday — everyone's partied out. (And what's more, it's the same every year!). But this year has been better than most, and made even better still by your good wishes, gentlemen. Cheers, B.

Please forgive me if I make a further observation regarding SIDs and STARs in flight planning. Whilst planning a flight for airliners (in PFPX, FSC, or anything else) it is usual NOT to include (or to erase, if automatically inserted by the software) any SID or STAR information. The reason is simple and obvious: these depend on the runway in use, which in turn depends on the weather, which is obviously going to vary on a day-to-day basis. So as a rule a stored route which is uploaded into an airliner's FMC has no SID (or STAR) information in it; that's one of many things that the pilot ent

My FSX virtual hangar contains two aircraft: the PMDG NGX and the PMDG 777 (OK, with variations of each). But I only fly those 2% of the time; the other 98% I fly the (PSX) 747-400 (which is on another machine and doesn't need FSX, so it's not exactly in my virtual hangar). A total of three aircraft seems about right to me, since I'm a procedural simmer who follows real world practice as closely as is possible. So I also respect the old saying amongst pilots - "Every pilot only has three type ratings in him". YMMV, and all that jazz. Cheers, bruce a.k.a. brian747

Jim, have you ever considered what most pilots regard as an essential, something called charts? There are some things that computerised flight planners, even PFPX, cannot do as well as that old-fashioned technology (albeit now often digitised, which is why EFBs remain an indispensable part of every airline pilot's luggage). As a recent example of an occasion when charts are quite simply indispensible, see http://forum.mutleyshangar.com/index.php/topic/19123-what-does-this-route-mean/#entry147849 Cheers, bruce a.k.a. brian747

Thank you for your birthday wishes, guys! @Joe > "...did you notice the rubber chicken over the pitot tube? " Well yes, I thought that was the most sophisticated aspect of the whole deal, TBH. Cheers, B.

> "I'd say that after the update the 777 uses 50 mb more memory than the NGX.." Absholutely! I'll drink to that! (In a minute or so, anyway...). Randazzo shpecifically says "When we finally recompiled the entire 777 product line [bC: preshumably for version 1d], we found that in both FSX, FSX-SE and Prepar3D, we were consuming about 250MB less memory than we had been in the version currently on user machines." So (pleashe forgive me, I'm under the affluence of incerhol) the 300Mb that he mentions in the first quote that I schited above, minus the 250Mb he mentions in the quote I

(Just back from lunsch but shtill *relatively* compos whilsht the Champers chills).... Ththfthank you for your good wishshes, shir. Aha, so - you're shtill trying to maintain that the shsheds have nothing to do with your PIREP, huh?? <hic> I'm defshnbly goin' t' hafta include a shed in my PIREP now, yup, you'll shee.... B.

Great pics and great PIREP, Maestro! Well negotiated through that nasty weather, too. But that aircraft, sheesh.... (Fun, you say?). Surely its own mother can't have loved it? But each to their own, I guess — perhaps it has charms of which I will forever remain unaware. Cheers, bruce a.k.a. brian747 (I'm just off for my birthday lunch, so I thought I'd better post now, on account of intending to be blatted for the rest of the day...).

In his recent article about progress on the 747 QotS II ( http://www.avsim.com/topic/479621-09dec15-a-whole-lotta-747-400-goodness/#entry3337571 ), Randazzo gives some figures for VAS usage compared to the NGX, as a baseline. He notes that the 777 uses 300Mb more VAS than the NGX. Many people have noted extra VAS usage, but this quantifies and confirms it. Incidentally, his comment about the (still in development) 744 Mk II was: "...right now VAS use is about 240MB below the 777... and we are still optimizing..." But it's his comments on the 777 update which are more relevant in t

Hi Jim! FYI, the effectivity date of the chart extract above is 10th Sept 2015, so with cycle 1507 you should get a perfect match. And just to confirm, once activated (here, just after pushback in T5) the route on my ND looks like this: Best of luck, Cheers, B.

Hi Jim! OK, I'm back — so further to the above I quickly sketched in a figure-of-8 round trip from EGLL and back again via DTY and the BNN transition to the BNN 1C STAR, and the results were boringly as expected. Here's the route on the ND (please ignore the outward leg of the "8"): And here are the constraints from the navdata (i.e. the selected STAR and transition) as seen in the CDU: I usually then enhance those constraints by adding the speed constraints as well (which helps with the workload at a busy time). If you compare the above with what you ge

Hi Jim! Well my real name is Brian (see below my avatar), but because there's another Brian in the Crew (who is usually known as Needles in fact — go figure) I became bruce. Obvious, really (not). Back OT — once you're within the STAR then it's not possible to change the waypoints (STARs are standard and immutable by definition, so are protected from being meddled with by pilots), hence there must be some other reason for the weirdness. Some of the EGLL approaches are pretty tight, though, and need me (in a heavily-loaded 744) to be at no more than about 175 kts with suitab

Hi Jim! There can be two reasons for that sort of presentation. One is that there's a flaw in the presentation or other logic of the FMC simulation in the aircraft you're using, but since it's PMDG I'm hopeful that it's not that. The second is that, given the laws of physics, the aircraft is unable to fly the route you requested owing to the fact that the radius of the turn is too tight for the speed and weight of the aircraft at that point. Looking at your presentation, it seems likely that the only way it could make that right-angled turn would be to perform the loop that's sho

This isn't a straightforward question to answer since there are differences between the procedures used by airlines and General Aviation, between civil and military, between IFR and VFR, and others. But here's the best answer that I can suggest. In particular, there is also a significant difference between the format of a flight plan as filed and the same plan as it is entered into the FMC (either uploaded or tweaked via the CDU). Since most simmers don't file a flight plan or request clearance, they often remain unaware of this — until they try to use filed routes from a site such as

> ...I seriously doubt the vision of me in a short skirt would have the same effect..... ... <pause while the mind boggles> ...

Fair enough, but the myth is long busted for FSX, (too).

What.... *none*??? <*cough*> Maybe LOUDER hints, next year? But I have a feeling that you Will Find A Way! (Let's see: New Year, at least one birthday, Chinese New Year, anniversary.... The possibilities just keep coming). All the best, B.

That figures: don't want to distract the pilots at a critical moment.

A lovely piece of kit, Kevin! Enjoy..... Cheers, bruce a.k.a. brian747 P.S. <grin> Remember the time (not that many years ago) when the conventional wisdom was that FSX was processor-intensive, and so there was no point in adding a powerful graphics card? Yet another of the many FSX myths that have bitten the dust.... B.

@Steph Just my luck: I've never seen a marshall in a short skirt..... @Micke Great PIREP — you've set us off perfectly for the next round of flights. Cheers, B.

Ho ho ho indeed! Normal service for all of us will probably only be resumed once the cold reality of the New Year hits us and the associated hangovers have finally started to lift.... All the best to all participants in the ATWC — with very special thanks to Micke for all his hard work in trying to herd this particular collection of cats! Cheers, B.