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I thought that I would take a moment and a few pages of the world wide web to post something that took me a bit of time to figure Page 2 Screenshots
out. For those of us into Flight Simulators or just starting there is a complicated piece of equipment on board our purchased planes Page 3
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mmWeather
called the FMC. Today I want to put together something for the newbies out there to get up and running and hopefully explain or
bring some light to areas that I had trouble with or from what I read in the forums is often asked. Now I know we all have manuals Page 5
and could read them, but this is a sim after all and if we crash no one gets hurt. So why read the manual unless you really get Page 6
stuck. Besides on the net you get to see color pictures and have my take on it. Page 7
Page 8
So here goes. Guam
86°F
It all begins with a plane and today that plane is a purchased product from PMDG. The reason for this choice is all planes in the base product (Century of Flight) Guam 86°F
come with very limited navigation systems, most of them just a single GPS but in the real world, big planes are not flown by a single GPS but a whole slew of
[Details]
sophisticated systems. So for today let's get right into it, I will assume that you have a FS9 running and you have started up your aircraft that contains the FMC.
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For the record my tips here apply to just PMDGs product but one the concepts are learnt you can easily adapt them to other planes. So here we go. First thing to MamboServer
do is get the FMC. In PMDG you can to that by clicking on the letter "F" at the left hand corner of the cockpit. Then click the button on next to ACARS, this MamboForge
should give you an image like:
Administrator

As far as I can tell ACARS is used to track messages from the plane to the ground in real life. It's how you know when a flight left the jetway and took off and
then landed and get back to the jetway. In FS life in this plane it only helps to program another part of the programming process. I guess now would be a good
time to explain some of the buttons on this big computer. For now let's keep it simple, next to the black screen there are 6 buttons on the left and 6 on the
right. For ease let's say the top left button is 1L the one directly below is 2L and so forth and the ones on the right follow suit. Top is 1R and then 2R etc etc..
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So on this page really all that we need to do is make up our flight and program where we are taking off and where we are going, this information shows up later
in the depart and arrive data pages. So to do this the first step, all I did was entered CS906 for Continental Micronesia flight 906 and then clicked the button next
to FLT NO or 1L. You can make anything up for this field.

Now let's enter where we are leaving from. No need to worry about what runway we are on. Just the ICAO code, look them up in FS if you don't know them.
Today's flight is a short 30 minute flight from Saipan to Guam. I have done this flight too many times to count in real life so I am very familiar with what the real
pillots due so it is good practice to apply to this example for me. You can choose a similar route if you want. So to enter the dep/arr information we enter the
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following into the scratchpad PGSN/PGUM. The scratch pad is just a term used for where things that we type on the computer show up. So I type what I want
and get what you see on the picture below

Next I hit the 2L button to load those values and we get the following but also notice that now on the screen that has the traingle, which represents your plane,
and the pink dotted line going towards 10 o'clock there is a small PGSN located above the plane. The means the plane now knows where it is.

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Once entered, that is all you need to do to complete step one of FMC flight programming. Now to get ready for the next steps this is what I do; 1st I click the
button 6L

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Once you click 6L you get

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From there I click on the button labeled MENU and I get:

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Then a simple click on the 6L and I am back to the main menu and ready for the fun stuff

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Ok, now that we got that it's on to the really fun stuff provided as is with no explanation.

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Ok, so we learned about ACARS, well not really, we learned what we need to do to get by. Remember this is the easy version. So Page 2 Screenshots
to continue, I will get into the more complicated settings with what you need to know to just get going. PMDGs FMC for its 737 line Page 3
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mmWeather
is very easy to program for most situations. I am not going to go into great deal so all you professionals out here don't get picky.
This is what I do and the order that I do it in and it works for me. If you run into problems or something doesn't work right please Page 5
refer to the manual. Page 6
Page 7
Right... so first thing to do is click on 1L from the main menu this will bring you to the IDENT screen of the FMC as shown below: A Page 8
tip, the other info on this page is for the navagational data that is loaded. If you run into problems with navigation it is always a good idea to check for the Guam
latest file. These are downloaded from www.navdata.at and are not released by microsoft.
86°F
Guam 86°F
[Details]

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After getting the screen above I click on 6R and get the screen below, this takes you to the POS INIT screen (Position Initialization). Here we the screen shows
where the plane thinks it is. I have never had an issue with the plane being lost in the 737s not that it isn't impossible to do but with a fresh start all seems to
usually figure itself out. You can read in the 737 manual if you want about IRS stuff but I don't feel that it is relative to this FAQ.

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Ok, so the plane now needs to know where it is, for this example you recall that I am taking off in Saipan (ICAO code PGSN) so I will enter PGSN in the scratch
pad and then click on the 2L button to load into the FMC. Now I have read that there are some airports that you would be able to enter gate information but this
involves manually tweaking data files and again it is beyond the scope of this article. So here is what we now have.

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Ok, the next thing that we have to try and do is tell the plane our route, how are we going to fly to our destination. To do that I then click on the 6R button and
get:

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Now there is a few things that can happen here, you will notice that in the picture above, I have already entered 07 in the scratchpad. Because Saipan is a small
airport there is only one runway and I happen to know that I am on runway 07. Now if you choose to start at the jetway or gate, you would have to ask ground
control for what runway you are going to be taking off from before you would be able to enter anything into this field. A few other tips, if you are taking off
from runway 7 right you would enter 07R, if it was 24 left you would enter 24L. If you are on runway 7R and you enter it by clicking 3L and you get an error, that
means that the PMDG database does not have any information on this runway. I should add that each add-on typically uses its own database so what might work
in one product is not guaranteed to work in this one. Ok, so next image:

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Ok, now for what I think is perhaps the biggest pain, route planning. Now there are several applications available on the market to help with this step. Off the Page 2 Screenshots
cuff http://secure.simmarket.com/default.php?cPath=24 you will find tools to help. But I will do it with what MS gives us. Click on "WORLD" on the top of the Page 3
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mmWeather
screen, if you are in full screen mode, just hit the "ALT" key and the menu will show up. Then click on map and you will get something that looks like this: (if
your location is different, then of course your map will look different from the picture.) Page 5
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Page 7
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Guam
86°F
Guam 86°F
[Details]
MamboServer
MamboForge
Administrator

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Now I click on the magnifying glass with the + in the center to zoom in. You should have the following:

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I will give you a little explanation here, make sure that all the buttons next to the magnifying glass are green in color. If they are red then they will not show on the map. Alright, now in my
example of Saipan you will see lots of blue triangles and one red one, I call these traiangles waypoints. It is the red one that I am interested in. Now for the important part, we need to find
the name of the waypoint because it is this name that we want to input into the FMC and make the plane fly to. To find the name, you simply move the mouse over the traingle. When the
mouse is over the way point you will get the following:

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So we see that the first point is SHODA, I will write that on a separate piece of paper for later. Now I need to move the map so I can see my next point. To do that, and sorry my
screencapture program doesn't capture the mouse, slowly move your mouse to the bottom of the screen. When you see the mouse turn to a down arrow you left click and that will move the
map in the direction of the arrow. There are eight possible map movemets, up, down, left, right, and the diagonals of those directions. For our example, I have used down once. Now just
like cars have roads, airplanes have airways. Think of them as roads in the sky. Some roads are higher and some are lower, some you go fast some you go slow. In programming the FMC you
want to try and fly airways because it is easier to program an airway then lots of different little points. Imagine if you were flying from the States to Europe and had to enter all the points in
between, what a pain. So instead of that we tell the plane to fly from one point of the airway to another point on the airway. And as long as the database knows the airway, magically all the
points are filled in for us by the computer. So now with that knowledge, we are looking for an intersection of an airway. Luckily there is one close to Saipan called HIRCH. In the graphic
beloe HIRCH is maybe 30 miles south of Saipan. The other thing to note is the name of the airway usually airways are labeled it would just be a matter of scrolling the map to find it. In our
example it is W21

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Alright, now that we have intersected the airway, where do we want to get off it. Now this is where a little experience comes in handy, but I move the map down until I am close to PGRO
(Rota) because PGRO is about 45 miles from my destination and it is where planes usually begin their descent into PGUM (Guam) So let's look for an exit point. As shown in the picture below.

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Ok, in looking at what we have so far, we are flying from PGSN, to SANDO via airway W21 and I forgot to tell you there is one waypoint before HIRCH called FIHVY sorry bout that. So on my
little piece of paper is written SHODA, FIHVY, HIRCH, W21, SANDO. Now I am looking for one more point along my path. So a little further down the map I find KAQTU. I do this because
KAQTU is about 20 miles from PGUM and it leaves me enough room to do my arrival procedures.

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Ok that is it for this map, on my scratch paper I have SHODA, FIHVY, HIRCH, W21, SANDO, KAQTU. We are now ready to program.

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Now, lets get the programming part, we have just about all the things we need. So first thing I do is click on the DEP/ARR button and get the below screen. You Page 2 Screenshots
should see that your departure and arrival airports are already loaded. This is is because of the ACARS programming. Page 3
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mmWeather
Page 5
Page 6
Page 7
Page 8

Guam
86°F
Guam 86°F
[Details]
MamboServer
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Ok, click on 1L and you will get the following:

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You should see a <SEL> next to the runway we are eaving from. You will also notice that the middle display also has changed to indicate that you are leaving on runway 7. Ok nextwe will
program our waypoints, to do this click on 6R and you will get: Now I apologize because I am missing a screen shot before you get what you see below. What is missing is that we need to
enter "SHODA" into the scratch pad and then hit 1R.

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This will load waypoint SHODA into the FMC. Once you hit 1R you will also see the point show up on the center display.

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Next we will enter waypoint FIHVY, so we type on the scatchpad and then click 2R.

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Notice on the picture below our path is beginning to show up.

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Next point that we will enter is HIRCH

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Now it is time to enter something important, you remember I mentioned that to save time there are airways and that to fly on an airway you would tell the plane where the start is and where
you want to get off and the computer will fill all the waypoints in between? Well now we are going to enter our airway, W21. To do this it is a little different then regular points that we fly
to. Instead of using the right hand side we indicate to the FMC by using the left hand side that we will be on an airway. So I enter W21 into the scratch pad and click on 4L, this will give you
the following (for reference the plane already knows that our enter point is HIRCH because it is an intersection point)

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So now we have to enter where we want to get off the airway, so of the exit on the highway. What is different about this data entry is that you will do on the same line as the airway just on
the other side. So from our directions, the next point that we wanted to stop was SANDO, so into the scratchpad with it and the click on 4R and you will get:

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Ok, only a few more to go KAQTU is next: scratch pad then 5L

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If you notice the center display is different, all I did was click on the knob, sort of middle screen that has APP, VOR, MAP, and PLN. I changed it to plan, the know directly next to it on the
right is your distance switch. This is handy to change when making plans. You can also see that I am close to Guam now, less then 20 miles. This is good because usually within 30 miles of
your destination you can ring up air traffic control (ATC) and ask for arrival procedures and what runway you are landing on.

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Now I could stop at this point and finish the rest of the configuration and then enter the final programming when I get to KAQTU, but let's cheat a little I know that there is only one viable
runway in Guam for jets to land on, (well at least in FS9 it is programmed that way) because if this fact I know that I will be landing on runway 6L so I am going to go ahead and finish
programming waypoints. To do this I click on the DEP/ARR button again and the click on 2R to get the following screen:

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Now you can see I have several options. These all come from that navagation file I mentioned ealier in the article. Now again to keep things simple I just hit the 1L button and get the
following screen:

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Now if you look at the image above you will notice that our blue lines don't meet. This would cause quite a problem so we need to make a little adjustment, and that adjustment is where it
says HAMAL, click on 2R and you will get

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Then click back on the LEGS button to take you back and you will see that a whole bunch of things have been entered:

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Now an important thing that you will notice is there are boxes at the top of the screen and below that you see ROUTE DISCONTINUITY, this means that there is a break in your flight plan.
Don't panic, this is very easy to fix, first thing you do is click on 2L, I call this down selecting. because it places what is in the plan back down into the scratch pad.

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Now the fun part to join our plan together simply click on 1L, this will remove the break and you will have a complete path from Saipan to Guam runway to runway. Well done!!!

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Now lets activate our plan, click on 6R, and you will see that the EXEC button will activate:

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Go ahead and click on the EXEC button and you will the plan will be entered into the computer. You will also notice that the plan now turns to pink;

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Now for some fun stuff, if you want to check you plan, you can click on 6R where is says STEP, this will walk you through your entire plan. IN addition as you step through you plan the main
display will also center itself on the current waypoint and also the current waypoint will have a <CTR> below it to indicate that is the current way point. The next coule of shots are just me
scrolling through the plan.

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Ok, so far we told the plane where we are starting from and going to, we told the plane how to get there, now we have to tell the plane a little bit about itself Page 2 Screenshots
and how we want it to fly. So for my next step I click on CRZ and get the following: Page 3
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mmWeather
Page 5
Page 6
Page 7
Page 8

Guam
86°F
Guam 86°F
[Details]
MamboServer
MamboForge
Administrator

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Now for me I know that this is a fairly short flight so I am only going to be going up to about 15000' in real life I think the jets are somewhere in that ball park. As a tip, since this is a short
flight, I don't really have time to climb real high because these big birds need miles of descent space. An example only and I might be wrong but it seems to me that coming down from 35000'
seems to take almost 30 minutes and cruising at a ground speed of almost 500mph your blow by space real fast. If you then take into consideration that the a plane also slows down at 10000
feet (sort of the international speed zone) you might need to 120 miles of space to have a normal descent from 35000' So from my experience a 15000' descent starts about 50 miles out from
my destination and in this example we are only flying 120 miles so almost half our trip is spent descending miles. Anyway lets enter 15000' for our cruising altitude. Don't forget to hit the EXEC
button again after entering the 15000' we need to update our flight plan. This single step allows for the FMC to calculate how fast the plane will ascend and descend. This is important if you
want the plane to know how to fly up and down. Also if you were to go back into the LEGS display you would see that altitudes have been automatically entered for you.

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Once entered the plane will calculate how much fuel will be left over when you get to your destination. Notice the 42.4 at PGUM. In this example we will land with lots of gas.

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Next step I click on the INIT/REF button and get the following:

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This screen might look complicated but t is rather easy, first click on 1L, this will automatically fill in some information for you.

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Next click enter 20.0 into the scratch pad and click 4L. This is the amount of fuel that you want for reserves. (Actually you don't have to enter this but it is good habit because other pay
planes use this information)

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Now enter 500 into the scratch pad and click 5L. Again this is not a working function in the 737 of PMDG but it is in their 747 and it does work in other pay planes. Cost index is a scale of how
expensive do you want the flight to be.

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Only a few more items on this screen and we are done, to complete the rest of the screen we need to get some weather information. The easiest way to do that is press the tilda key located
next the "1" key and then select the option to tune ATIS. That is the automated weather for the airport that you are at. Listen for wind direction, strength and temperature. My weather was
calm winds and a temperature of 15 so the following screens load that information.

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Now you will see again that the EXEC button is lite, go ahead and click it. This will load more techie information into the plan. This information is used to tell the plane how hard the engines
need to go to take off.

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Once you have clicked the EXEC button we will need to make some changes. Go ahead and click on the legs button and you should see something like this:

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Now in looking at this screen we see that we take off and our speed increases as does our altitude. This makes for happy passengers and a happy flight, lets hit the step button and go through
our flight , hit 6R or press the NEXT PAGE to look at the next page

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Now looking at the above image there is an irregular spped change, you will notice on line one is says 180/2663 that is 180 knots and 2663' then on line two it reads 240/1400'. This doesn't
make sense, we are into our approach, why would we want to speed up. So to correct this there is a couple of things you can do. Since this is the easy manual I have found that between 155
and 160 seems to be a magic landing speed for all aircraft in my library. So we could just enter a correction of 157/1400 into the scratchpad and click 2R.

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You will then notice that all the points below change to reflect 157 and the EXEC button again turns on. Any time you make a change to your flight plan you must hit the EXEC button to
update the plan.

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We are almost ready to take off, there are only a few more screens to go, next click on the N1 Limit button Page 2 Screenshots
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And the click 6R next to the takeoff

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Here we have to tell the plane what degree we will set our flaps to and the we set some speed reference points. The purpose of doing this is the plane will then tell you when it is going fast
enough that you can pull back and get off the ground. For the 737 I always use 10 degrees flap. So scratch pad then 1L

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Now that the plane knows the flap setting, you can simply click on 1R, 2R and 3R to set your speed points.

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The click on 6L or the button next to the word index. You should get the following:

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Then click on approach or 5L

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The last thing in the FMC that I do is set the reference speed and flap degree when landing. To do this simply click the setting (in our case click on 2R) and the flap setting will automatically
be entered. This will show up as VREF when you are landing. Look for it and see if you find it.

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Now in closing there are a few other tips that I will give. Before taking off you should set your cruise altitude on the main panel. This is the orange numbers, also you should set the speed to 240 and your course and headings should be the runway heading. Page 2 Screenshots
Set your Autobrake to RTO. Make sure you turn on the F/D switch and turn on the A/T arm. These are the switches that allow the different systems to talk to one another. So you should have a coclpit that now looks like this: Page 3
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The other area that I would mess around with is the radio, tune in Saipan landing and make sure you turn on your transponder so you can see some traffic. Transponder is located in the center of the radio and it should be two clicks. Your screen should like...

Ok throttle up get into the air. My last thoughts is I would getyour autopilot going as soon as the wheel are up. You will get an FMC message when you are close the the top of your descent, all that you have to do there is simply change the 15000' we entered to whatever you landing
altitude is then when starting your descent, tune your radios to the ILS frequency wait until you've acuired the localizer and then put the plane into autoland mode. If that is all to brief, I am planning on writing another tutorial for AutoLands. So check back later. The last screen shots
are when everything is all lit up hit the next page to see. Enjoy, hope this helped and will catch ya later.

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