4.4.2015
FMC/CDU-II programming on the PMDG 737-800NGX « there's no home like ~
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FMC/CDU-II programming on the PMDG 737-800NGX
21.03.2012
Yesterday in the evening, right after our japanese training, I thought I should fly a bit. I haven’t done
this since October last year, because of no time while the Linux und Windows training. I start my new
job as Senior Web Developer on April 2nd, so I have a bit more time at the moment – time to fly I
say!
I always had issues with the Autopilot on my PMDG 737-800NGX in the past. But before we
program the FMC/CDU-II, here are a few important links.
Basic information search
To find the ICAO code of the airport we want to take off, we can the Airport code lookup site. Simply
enter the name of the airport you want to take off and it will show you the ICAO code.
The airport I take off from is Düsseldorf, DUS or EDDL. I know this ICAO code, because it’s my
home airport. But I want to fly to Bruxelles, Belgium. I didn’t know this ICAO code, so I enter the
city name and voilá: EBBR is the code I need. Great!
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Next, we need to route. Flying and airplance is not as free as some may think – in real life, a pilot
would (or should) never fly directly from airport A to airport B – because of the other traffic. It’s a bit
like driving a car on the highway. In the air, we have waypoints that we will reach.
Luckily, we have the free RouteFinder. This will guide us from airport A (DUS/EDDL) to airport B
(BRU/EBBR).
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Great! That is exactly what we need! Keep this window open (maybe on a laptop) or print this site.
We need this data in the flight simulator to program the route.
At least, we need some more information about the runway we will land on. As we don’t fly an
Airbus A380 and want to land on a small airport like Weeze, we don’t care so much about the length,
but more about the frequency of the ILS. The ILS is an awesome system that makes landing a peace
of cake! All you need is to bring your airplane into the front of the runway on a direct line, go to a
specified height and hit the APP (approach) button on the MCP. Of course, you will have to lower
your speed, increase the flaps to at least 15°, but more on that later.
There is a site for this! Copy & paste this URL to your browser
http://www.ivao.aero/db/ss/airport.asp?Id= and enter the ICAO code to the end, so that the URL is
http://www.ivao.aero/db/ss/airport.asp?Id=EBBR. This will show us detailed information about a lot
of runways and the airport itself. If your airport is not here, well – use Google. I’m not kidding
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I have marked the runway we will land on – 25R. The frequency of the ILS is 110.3 MHz and the
direction in 251°.
Launching the flight simulator
Time to launch the Flight Simulator. I run the Microsoft Flight Simulator X Gold version and I fly a
PMDG 737-800NGX which also costs a few bucks – but it’s worth it! This guide is based on this
plane and requires it. There is no FMC/CDU-II in the airplanes that Microsoft deliveres with the
Flight Simulator itself. I currently fly without a yoke, throttle quadrant or pedals – need to re-buy
them ASAP But we DON’T NEED it – it’s just a lot loss of the realistic feeling.
I fly an AirBerlin branded Boing 737-800NGX, which you can also download from the PMDG
website.
A quick note! Look for a download of the UIAutomationCore.dll! You will find it on the net easily.
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It’s buggy in the Flight Simulator version. Put it into (for example) C:ProgramsMicrosoft
GamesMicrsoft Flight Simulator X folder and you’re save of these annoying application crashes that
often appear without that patch.
However – once you’ve launched the Flight Simulator, choose your airport, airplane, weather & time.
Launch!
I will put my FlightSimulator to windowed mode here to be able to take screenshots of the FMC – so
don’t wonder why it may look different.
First, we do a right click somewhere on the runway and deselect “hide menubar” (or similar, I have
the german version here). I now press Alt+Enter to leave the fullscreen mode.
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Now I need the FMC/CDU-II, so I click on “Views” -> “Instruments” and select “CDU (Left)” which
is the Captains one. Once it pops up, I do a right click on the FMC/CDU-II and say “release
windows”. It pops out and I can resize it a bit to make it more readable.
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First, we do some “FS Actions”. In a tutorial they have named the keys on the left and on the right and
gave them numbers, starting from 1 at the top to 6 at the bottom (the keys on the left and right of the
display). I call them “L1″ for “left, 1st button” to “L6″ and “R1″ to “R6″.
Fuel
Hit R5 to enter the “FS Actions”, then L1 to enter “FUEL”. Hit R5 to add 1/3rd fuel to the plane –
that’s fine for our short trip. TOTAL KGS should be ~6894 now (next to the L1 key). Hit L6 to return
to the previous menu.
Payload
Hit L2 “Payload” and then R4 to load the airplane to the max. This means: all seats are used by
passengers and all cargo space is used. Hit L6 to return to the previous menu.
Hit L6 to return to the main menu.
FMC
Hit L1 to go to the FMC itself. This will take you to the IDENT page – this is for your information.
You can’t change anything here.
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INIT REF
Now we need to enter our position to the FMC. Remember? We are at DUS which is EDDL. Hit the
“INIT REF” key, which is the first key below the display on the left. You see REF AIRPORT. PRESS
AND HOLD the Tab key while typing “EDDL”. A green border will appear in the last line of the
display and you will see the signs you’ve entered. That’s much more comfortable than clicking the
codes This is a good practice until you are so crazy and spend between 700$ and 2000$ for a real
CDU for your sim!
Now, with “EDDL” in the last line, hit the L2 key.
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Should look like this
ROUTE
Next, hit R6 to enter the ROUTE mode. As we still have “EDDL” in the last line, all you need to do is
to click on L1 (ORIGIN).
The next part is a bit tricky. We need to find out on which runway we were placed. A simple trick to
do so is to change the view to bird perspective and zoom back a bit. The runway numbers are painted
on the runways in huge letters. So go to “View” “View mode” “Outside” “bird view”.
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We are on 05R here. R stands for “right” while 05 is the direction. You see the other runway on the
left, which is marked with “05L”. If we were there, it would be 05L. Time to return back into the
virtual cockpit. “View” “View mode” “Cockpit” “Virtual Cockpit”.
Go back to your FMC/CDU-II, press and hold the Tab key and type “05R”, then click L2. Maybe
there will be a text “NAV DATA OUT OF DATE” in the last line now, we ignore this.
The destination is “EBBR”, so enter EBBR (hold the Tab key!) and hit R1. We also need a flight
number – be creative. I use AB8578 mostly, because it’s AB = AirBerlin brand and 8578 is my
birthday
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That was page 1/2. Hit the “NEXT PAGE” key below the display. You will see VIA and TO there.
It’s time to enter the waypoints here, so that the FMC can calculate the route. We gonna open up the
“Zoomed Left Inboard DU”, which is by default the navigation display. Open it inside the FlightSim
window and release the window. I’ve placed both windows next to each other – do it the same way.
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Press and hold tab while you enter the first waypoint: MODRU and press R1. You will instantly see a
blue dotted line of the navigation display. It’s a plan. Once we activate it, it will turn purple and solid.
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We want to see the complete track, to do so, we need to change a setting at the EFIS. Go back to
FlighSim main window, press and hold Shift while you press the cursor to right. Holding shift here is
VERY important, because you would move the front wheel without holding the shift key which will
end up in taking off maybe outside the runway
Press cursor right 3x and then 2x the plus sign.
The knob we need to rotate is this one:
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Do a right click on the knob and repeat until you can read “80” in the navigation display. This will
show the half radius of 80 nm (nautic miles).
We continue to put in our waypoints as shown above. It sometimes happens, that the waypoint is used
2x or more, simple compare the position that is shown behind the name and you know which one is
the right one.
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? Do not enter the airport EBBR here! We will finish the track in another menu. Hit R6 to activate the
route. The EXEC key is now activated (the white LED above the key turned on). We will NOT hit
EXEC right now, because we have to enter some more data.
Click the DEP/ARR key below the display and then R2 – we need to select the runway for the
approach. Before, we said “25L” is the runway we want to land (note that in real simulations and real
life, this will be done while the flight and the air traffic controller will tell you on which runway you
have to land).
Hit the “NEXT PAGE” button once and select “ILS 25L”. Now it get’s a bit complicated –
unfortunately. We get the right tracks at the end of route, but there is a ROUTE DISCONTINUITY
between LNO and FLO. We need to fix that. For a better view, press the button (don’t rotatate!) on
the left next to the one we rotatated before to switch the navigation display. Press is 1x.
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Also, rotate the other know we used before 1x by clicking it with the left key (hit the ring, not the
knob).
The navigation display should now look like this:
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On the FMC, hit the LEGS button and click “NEXT PAGE” 1x. Now Press and hold the tab key
while you type “FLO”, click on L1. Select the topmost. You will see, that the gap is filled now on the
navigation display.
You will have other entries between “ROUTE DISCONTINUITY”, hit the DEL key on the FMC on
the bottom and then click the additional entry, repeat it until the FMC looks like this:
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We now hit “EXEC” – the route is programmed, but still now perfect. No problem! Hit the DEP/APR
key again, hit R2 and NEXT PAGE. Hit R1 and select FLO (R4), hit EXEC. We have a return to FLO
now.
Hit the LEGS key and hit NEXT PAGE until you see the last FLO entry (right after 120° HDG
(INTC)). Press DEL and hit the key next to FLO, hit EXEC and we should be good to go.
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CLB
Hit the CLB (Climb) key and enter 6000 as CRZ ALT.
INIT REF
At least, we need to enter some data about the plane itself. Hit the “INIT REF” key and hit L3 2x.
Some numbers will be filled in here automatically. Enter 5.0 to RESERVES and 25 to the COST
INDEX field. Hit EXEC.
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NI LIMIT
Hit the NI LIMIT key and then R6 (TAKEOFF) and enter 5 to FLAPS.
Your FMC/CDU-II is now ready!
MCP
The next (and fast quicker to configure) system is the MCP or “Autopilot”, which is part of the MCP.
Open up a new instrument and release the window as before.
First, turn on both F/Ds on the Captains side (right) and the First Officers side (left). The switches are
labled as F/D. The MA LED should lid up on the Captains side now. Next, arm the A/R ARM which
is above the NI key.
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Set the speed to 243 by clicking the button below the IAS/MACH display several times (you can also
hold the right mouse button for a moment).
Set the heading to 256°.
Set the altitude to 6000ft.
Click the VNAV button.
Forward Overhead Panel
As one of the last steps before we are ready for takeoff is to set some keys into the right position on
the Overhead Panel. Go to “View” “Instruments” and select “Forward Overhead”. Once again, I
highly recommend to release this window. Otherwise, it’s maybe a bit hard to read.
On the left, set the AUTO to 25000 and the LAND ALT to 0.
Turn on all lights on the left, set BOTH Engines to CONT and turn on the Position Strobe & Anti
Collision on the right.
I was told (thanks @Daemotron) that the Position Stobe could be turned off if you’re done with
taxiing (I think that means – when you’re in the air). More important, turn on the navigation lights
and, what he calls the “beacon” (I guess that’s a light at the end of the plane).
Rotate the Auto Brake switch to RTO (green) and press the ENG button (pink) 2x.
Cockpit
Holding the shift key, use the cursor to navigate to the center of the cockpit. Use the + key to zoom in
(and – to zoom out).
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READY FOR TAKEOFF
We’re now ready for takeoff Press CTRL+. to activate the break, move yourself back into the seat
by pressing and holding shift+cursor keys. Press “-” several times. You should see the runway.
Press CTRL+Shift+G to increase the speed and wait a moment until the engines are about 80%
(console in the center, below the ENG button). A MASTER CAUTION will turn on until you’ve
released the brakes and/or you’ve left the runway.
Press . to release the break and prepare to rotate (move the yoke toward yourself if you have one or
press carefully sometimes the cursor down key). It is save to rotate at ~125kt and save to takeoff if
you’re at ~150kt.
Be sure position the angle at ~15° not much more!
Once you’ve reached ~200ft, move in the gear by pressing “G”.
If you’ve reached ~1000ft, you can try to turn on the Autopilot by pressing the CMD button on the
right in the MCP. Hit the LNAV key and the ALT HD key on the MCP.
The plane will now automatically move along the programmed course.
Be sure that the MCP looks like this now:
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To increase the height, select V/S and set it to +1000. The plane will increase the height until you’ve
reached the height of 6000ft. If it’s near to this, you will hear a sound that me always reminds me of
an old train
Navigation Display
Press the marked left button in the key again to change the navigation display look and left click the
ring of the right knob to zoom in.
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ILS
It’s a good moment to set the frequency of the runway in your navigation panel. Click on “View”
“Instruments” “Aft Electronic Panel”. You will see a NAV signed module on the top left. Set the
frequency to 110.30 and then press the button in the middle to activate.
Hint! Click to outer ring for the number before the ., and the middle one for the number behind the .
Flight
Enjoy the flight and get a cold Coke
Approach
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WAYPOINT FLO: Speed & altitude – approach preparation
If you are reaching the waypoint “FLO”, it’s a good idea to decrease the speed to 220 knots and start
lowering to altitude to 3000ft. We need to be at 3000ft to catch the ILS signal which will guide us to
the runway.
Lower the flaps to 10°. (F7 increase, F6 decrease)
Final approach
In my case – the Autopilot went mad short before we landed – but no worries! Using the HEADING
and the HDG SEL key, you can navigate “half automatic”.
If you are in this area, you should set the flaps to full (press several times F7). Don’t forget to move
out your gears at least when the computer says “1000” (ft). You should land with ~135kt.
Keep cool when the computer complaines “too low, terrain”. I had this 2x and I landed safely. This
time, I reacted and the landing was not very well Better trust the ILS in this case.
Once you’re on the runway, push down the throttle by pressing and holding “Page down” to release
the reverse thrust.
Welcome to Bruxelles!
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Hope you enjoyed this tutorial! It was a hell of fun to write it!
PS. There are for sure some mistakes inside this tutorial, especially when it comes to the route
planning, but I learned this from other tutorials and concluded it.
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