If this is your first visit, be sure to check out the FAQ by clicking the link above. You may have to register before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages, select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below. |
|
|
Thread Tools | Display Modes |
#71
|
|||
|
|||
Confusion about when it's my navigation, and when it's ATC
Pixel Dent writes: Well, once again I don't know much about airliners, but in smaller planes at least you don't generally increase airspeed to descend you reduce power. Not me. The descent is where I get back the speed I invested in the climb. If turbulence allows I set up a 500 fpm descent, without touching the power which is almost always max for cruise. I generally then get 190 MPH indicated in the descent, which is the bottom of the yellow arc. |
#72
|
|||
|
|||
Confusion about when it's my navigation, and when it's ATC
bdl writes:
Is the FMC flying or are you? When the FMS is on, it flies the plane. More specifically, the FMC provides data to the flight director, and the autopilot then executes the instructions from the flight director. For most of the flight, you don't have to do anything, as the FMC will manage climb, cruise, descent, and (with a few buttons) autolanding. You can enable or disable the FMC wholly or partially, depending on your requirements. You can shut it off completely and just use the MCP (the autopilot panel on the glare shield) to manage the flight director and the autopilot. You can wholly or partially shut that down, too. You can also turn off the autopilot and just fly the aircraft by hand, either following the flight director's instructions, or entirely on your own. The autopilot/FMS controls pitch, roll, and throttle, so everything is covered. You have a lot of flexibility in choosing how much you want to do automatically, and how much you want to do by hand. In the real world, the FMS handles most of each flight, mainly because that provides the best fuel economy and least wear and tear on the aircraft (because the FMS is programmed to optimize those by default). I'm not an airline pilot, so I'll go ahead and ask the question (please real world answers only) is the FMC the boss or is the pilot? The pilot is the boss. The FMS is no more in control than an autopilot. It flies the plane when you tell it to, but it stops when you tell it to stop. If the FMC says optimal is such and such, but ATC says do this, doesn't the airline pilot do what ATC says? From the discussion here, apparently ATC is in control. If the FMS doesn't agree, you override the FMS. I always assumed that a FMS in a modern airliner was just a souped up version of my Garmin 430. I.e. it has a plan, but what I get is ALWAYS different. Even when I try to "guess" ahead of time. It's a very, very souped up version of a Garmin 430, but the basic idea is the same. And the results can vary because real-world conditions (such as winds aloft) can vary. But an FMS is much better at executing the plan than a Garmin 430. For example, an FMS knows that you must not exceed 250 kts below 10,000 feet MSL, and will respect that restriction. A less sophisticated automation system doesn't know this. Indeed, the automation used in smaller aircraft doesn't pay any attention to speed or throttle at all. Yet another difference between your simulated world and the real world, huh? Yes. Does the lack of heavy traffic make you a better simulated pilot? Over the long run, I don't think it makes any difference, any more than it does in the real world. It's the product of time and traffic that counts. Two words, "Say again" Yeah, but after saying this once or twice, I begin to feel like a nuisance. If you want to get a glimpse into real world ATC, take a look at Don Brown's columns at Avweb (http://www.avweb.com/news/sayagain/193881-1.html) I'll take a look. -- Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail. |
#73
|
|||
|
|||
Confusion about when it's my navigation, and when it's ATC
bdl writes:
If you want to get a glimpse into real world ATC, take a look at Don Brown's columns at Avweb (http://www.avweb.com/news/sayagain/193881-1.html) I looked at the page. He seems to discuss nothing but politics. -- Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail. |
#74
|
|||
|
|||
Confusion about when it's my navigation, and when it's ATC
bdl writes:
If you were in "real" IMC it's even worse (at least until you develop some practice and learn to keep the picture in your head). Always seems like ATC is telling you to do something just as you are in the middle of something else. I've already had that experience in simulation. On VATSIM, you can communicate by voice or by text. I usually communicate by text, simply because the sound quality is often so bad for some controllers that I cannot make out what they are saying. However, it is true that text is woefully unrealistic, and it also makes it difficult or impossible to communicate during the most critical phases of the flight, as one simply doesn't have time to type (even fast typists like me). When I listen to real ATC on liveatc.net, it sounds just as bad. The quality problems aren't the same, but their magnitude is. I'm surprised more aircraft aren't running into each other. I can only hope that the audio quality is much better aboard the actual aircraft, but I doubt it. -- Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail. |
#75
|
|||
|
|||
Confusion about when it's my navigation, and when it's ATC
Thomas Borchert writes:
But to do that would be totally unrealistic. Not at all. The aircraft is perfectly capable of autolanding in real life. As far as I know, the actual ground equipment is the same for all ILS categories. The aircraft equipment differs by category (the higher the category, the fancier the equipment), but the 737-800 is fully equipped for Cat IIIc autolanding. I don't know how often autolanding is used in real life. Apparently many pilots like to fly the landing and perhaps at least part of the approach by hand. But they can still autoland if they want to. -- Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail. |
#76
|
|||
|
|||
Confusion about when it's my navigation, and when it's ATC
Jim Carter writes:
So you are really using your home computer as a procedure and systems simulator and not a flight training tool. I use it for both. When I fly a 737-800, there's a much greater emphasis on systems and procedures. When I fly a Baron 58, there's a much greater emphasis on flight training itself. I use the Baron for pattern practice, but the 737 for complex navigation and ATC practice. I will agree that learning systems and procedures are part of the flight training process (or any training process that involves automation), but they are not as big a part of the overall training as you seem to believe. I think that depends hugely on what type of flying you intend to do. For airline pilots, systems and procedures seem to be the lion's share of what they do. Actually flying the plane is becoming increasingly incidental. I say that because of your devotion to the idea that you really are doing exactly the same thing as a professional pilot actually flying an aircraft along the same routes. Exactly the same thing? I think not. But I come very close. There are a lot of freewill decisions that still take place in the cockpit and those decisions can not be simulated. I make free-will decisions, too. However, in practical commercial aviation, the idea is to reduce free will to a minimum. Free will does not yield economical and low-maintenance flight. Flying exclusively by the numbers with a computer does. Airlines would probably love to dispense with pilots entirely. If it were considered safe, reliable, or even desirable to automate the entire process (as a systems simulator provides) then there would be no flight training requirements because there would be no pilots. That time will come. Their presence even today is increasingly as a back-up. It's already possible to fly aircraft from gate to gate without a pilot, although such systems have not actually been deployed commercially, as far as I know. True flying is involves much less systems integration and systems management than you seem to believe. Maybe in a Cessna, but not in commercial aviation. My point to this post is that you seem to have the incorrect idea about systems management and procedure memorization being the most significant part of operating an aircraft -- that's not the way it is for the large majority of people who fly. Do you fly large jets for an airline, or small aircraft? -- Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail. |
#77
|
|||
|
|||
Confusion about when it's my navigation, and when it's ATC
Judah writes:
How do you know? The honest ones admit it to me. -- Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail. |
#78
|
|||
|
|||
Confusion about when it's my navigation, and when it's ATC
Sam Spade writes:
I don't think you understand the aerodynamics of the real world. MSFS has great scenery but the aircraft and the atmosphere modeling are terribly wrong in MSFS. It sounds like you don't fly much in MSFS. Tell me _exactly_ what's wrong with the aircraft modeling. -- Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail. |
#79
|
|||
|
|||
Confusion about when it's my navigation, and when it's ATC
bdl writes:
The realism is very striking. That doesn't make it REAL, however. As long as the realism is striking, it doesn't have to be real. The whole purpose of simulation is realism without reality, after all. -- Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail. |
#80
|
|||
|
|||
Confusion about when it's my navigation, and when it's ATC
Paul Tomblin wrote: In a previous article, Mxsmanic said: Paul Tomblin writes: I fly with a Garmin 296 handheld GPS. In my experience, nearly always just around the same time it says I need to start my descent if I want to descend at 500fpm to my destination, ATC clears me down to a lower altitude without being asked. I have noticed this as well. I suppose if they know the route well, they know when the descent usually starts. Except they know where to start my descent whether I'm flying a 100 knot Archer or a 140 knot Lance, or on one occasion, a Piper Dakota with a 70 knot tail wind. I suspect there is software they use to handle this. It believe it is based on the instrument requirement (?) of 500 fpm rate of descent. At a given airspeed and altitude, at 500 fpm an aircraft should commence its descent at the calculated distance. This will vary depending on the facility, traffic and procedures. I calculate the distance in may head for my given cruise altitude and wait to see if ATC calls me at the appropriate time. They are usually early on the call to assign lower. |
Thread Tools | |
Display Modes | |
|
|