Thomas Kwong's excellent A340

Hello again. In this how to, I will describe flying from airport A to airport B without losing your sanity. Before reading this, I recommend you download Nav 1.9, a freeware flight planning utility. I also recommend you download the planes used in this article--but any 737 will do. I express my sympathy to you FS5.x and FSFW95 users out there...I just upgraded to 2K from 95, and believe me, I know how bad it can get...

I am writing this assuming you have read at least a few other How To's...namely, How To Navigate with a VOR, How To Create And Use A Flight Plan, etc. I also am assuming that you know how to use Nav 1.9 or, if you have FS2000, the flight planner. Just view Nav 1.9's readme if you have that, or look up help if you have FS2000. This sample flight we will be a short one from Chicago O'Hare (KORD) to Minneapolis (KMSP). The aircraft will be a Boeing 737 of your choice...but I recommend a -200 model. They were the best, and most people will agree with me.

The NWA FS2K 737-200...O'Hare in the b/g

In The Beginning...

Every flight begins with takeoff...and most people are somewhat good at this. But as a refresher, for a normal 737 takeoff, set about 15° of flaps, and about 95% of fan RPM, and accelerate down the runway. Vr is about 120 KIAS...when positive VS is achieved, retract the gear and level off a bit...reduce throttle...try to maintain 2500 fpm and 250 KIAS...if you are above 1500 feet you may engage the autopilot...but only use altitude hold, set it to 35,000 feet...fine, use the auto-throttle if you find it necessary...Set it to 250 kts, and above 15,000 feet set it to Mach .60, at above 25,000 set it to Mach .74, which is a 737's cruise speed, All models...

Here To There...

Tuning a VOR is easier than most people think. Nav 1.9 gives you the VOR's frequency, and the course and recip...all you need to know. I see our first VOR is Janesville and we should be on course...304...set the OBS to 124 then. And the frequency is 114.30. Set this in both VOR1 and VOR2, I will explain why later.

Now you get this, after turning RIGHT after takeoff...and ascending a bit...this pic was taken at 11,000 feet. Now, s brings us to why we tune in both Nav1 and Nav2 to the same freq. Look at the HSI...it tells you everything you need to know, right? WRONG. It doesn't tell you whether you are heading toward the radial or toward the VOR itself...since you very well may be. BUT! The Nav2 display DOES tell you whether you are heading toward the VOR or not! All you need to do make sure (in this case) that the BIG needle is to the left of the little arrow...and you are heading toward the radial! Slick, eh?

The VOR 1 and 2 displays.

Hoyeah! Right on course!

Now you repeat this process for every one of the other VOR's, and only use the wing leveler. The NAV hold seems to do no good...once you engage it, it has a tendency to just circle around a fixed point...which is near the VOR!

Keeping your Sanity...

These procedures save a lot of time....which is both bad and good......! And so, I will now give some tips on keeping you sanity at 35K feet...FL350..whatever...
Of course, in a real plane, you could get up and walk around (And give the 1st Officer command...!) , so why not in the sim world? Make yourself a sandwich, drink a can of soda...but keep an eye on the computer, unless you can get someone else to watch the panel! I also have a collection of MP3's and wavs...which help a lot...(mine are from the best of Bond!)! Well, at least I used to...my computer crashed a while ago, and I lost everything! Well , I did run in safe mode and saved most of my files to disk...So do yourself a favor....do something! But don't forget to change your VOR's every so often.

The King Air Is a nice plane to practice in. The question is...why do I have it, if I have FS2K standard?

The end of the line.....

Okay, now we must descend. A good rule of thumb when figuring out when you should descend id the 3 to 1 rule. You need about 3 miles distance to each thousand feet in altitude. It is in the 737-400's help file....flight notes. if you are at 35K feet, just descend at 2000 fpm at about 150 Nautical Miles out. Lower flaps at these speeds...

Gear down at around 170 kts. Descend at around 700 fpm once you've caught the glideslope.

Yeah, I deviated from the course, but the course the Flight Planner spit out would have me perpendicular to the runway.

If you have FS2K, arm the autospoilers with Shift+/. At about 20 feet off the runway, cut the throttles and flare so that your VS is close to nil. I never use degrees. Reverse the engines, and keep them that way until airspeed is about 60 Kts. Retract the flaps and spoilers and use the wheel brakes to decelerate to taxi speed.

I'm off center, yes, but I fly with the keyboard.....! So it's exusable!

Well, I hope I've given you some useful tips which will help with your simming experience. Though this probably won't answer all of your questions, it should at least help a bit, Right....? Most of these planes are available here at FS.com. I wish AA planes were, though. There is an AA 737-200 available from my site, however, on the FS95 page. It will convert to FS6.1 or FS7 format, so you guys can use it as well(that's why I can use it!).

Erick Cantu
E_Cantu@email.com
http://www.geocities.com/erick_cantu/