I bought the pmdg 737 700 a couple days ago and still cannot get it to follow a correct approach path… i use simbreif for my routing and i go into the fmc put my destination, arrival and waypoints in and its all fine. Then i put my departure runway and star and its still fine but as soon as i put in my approach for example ils 24 and the star it just doesnt seem to work… it wont line me up correctly at all it will just fly me to a random place close to the airport then the route ends? Does anybody know what i might be doing wrong?
One of the thing that it Maybe us its expecting to be vectored to the approach waypoint to capture the ils. If you don’t get vectored your going to have to go direct to the first approach waypoint to begin the approach, otherwise it will just continue to fly its current heading.
Topic moved into 3rd Party aircraft.
The SDK category is for discussion of the Software Development Kit.
You will have to edit the flightplan in the FMC to remove any discontinuities and possibly vectors. Set the display to PLN mode to review the flightplan before you take off. You can step through the flightplan by hitting “step” in the bottom right of the FMC menu when upper display rotation dial is set to PLN.
To remove a discontinuity, click on the button to the left of the next valid waypoint and click on to the button next to the discontinuity to paste the waypoint over it. Then hit EXE to commit any changes.
You will soon get used to the FMC it’s one if the best I’ve encountered.
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Thanks for that ill give it another go. Hope it works cause its driving me mad lol
Your flight plan has to be continuous so best to review it fully in PLN before setting off.
Often you may need to change arrival / approach if destination weather changes say and ATC change your arrival runway, but once you get the hang of the FMC its a breeze to do during flight.
There are FMC tutorials on youtube for 737, worth watching.
In order to get VNAV working properly you also need to set up performance criteria, fuel, and zero fuel weight, cruise altitude etc.
Im sure there’s video for that too.
The main 737 thread on here has a lot of useful stuff too, but it is a long thread now, so may be hard to search.
I also suggest watching one of the many videos with experienced simmers or actual pilots doing a full flight in the PMDG 737 to see what they do and how the aircraft works. I’ve been doing this for years and I learn something new every time.
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Im completely fine with the fmc and everything ive been watching videos for the past week its just purely inputting the flight plan then it doesnt even go where i ask
You’re watching the wrong videos then because there are plenty that go into more detail than just inputting the flight plan into the FMC including about discontinuities and more.
There are thousands of hours of material available.
just to show you guys… i did a test flight from stansted to manchester. have attached the simbreif route, my route page, legs page and what the computer is showing on approach…
Could you also show what your Legs page shows? Route only shows enroute waypoints and airways.
Edit - sorry I see the legs page.
So having just checked my Navigraph for EGCC it seems that you have no active STAR or approach loaded. ELVOS is the last enroute waypoint. You need to use ARR/DEP to load the Arrival and Approach procedures and then activate with an Exec command.
I note you say you are doing this in the OP, but the pictures above make it very clear there is no active approach - it may be because you are loading a runway waypoint yourself. Don’t do this via LEGS or RTE - only via ARR/DEP. The approach will (usually) include the runway waypoint - by adding this yourself it may be interpreted by the FMC as a visual approach and override any approach you have loaded (but I’m speculating on this). Either that our you are not executing your commands. And if not this either, then I’m not sure what it could be.
Note STARS will usually not be included in your SimBrief generated flight plan as they are assigned by ATC as they are wind dependent (at least into EGCC). And even if they are included (like STARS in the US,) the PMDG will not load them in as part of the Simbrief FP upload. - you always have to use the ARR/DEP page to load them.
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Which version of the plane are you running? Latest update?
well quick update… i had a different pmdg installed. i installed it from the official website and loaded it into the game and nothing works at all lol no buttons no nothing
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You didn’t remove all folders from the previous version. There are some extra folders outside the normal addon location
Where was the first plane from? Was it sold on simmarket or similar
i went through all my files earlier im sure i got rid of all
Yep. Exactly. Clear the discontinuities and connect dotted lines in the plan. You want waypoint to waypoint. Navigraph helps a TON with that. The same goes for the FENIX. Clearing is easy in the 737. Do that and you’ll likely be fine.
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You haven’t installed the new plane correctly then
You don’t have an arrival or an approach loaded in the example shown above. The FMC is doing exactly what you have asked it to do. Track from waypoint ELVOS direct to RWY 23R.
Depending on where in the world you operate, SID/STARS may or may not be included in the filed flightplan. SimBrief may be the same. You should always double check any uploaded route to ensure it is what you expect. If not, than make the necessary modifications.
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Yes looks like what @AlpineB4652 is saying. You haven’t got a STAR / approach loaded.
One very easy way to do a first flight on the 737 (I sometimes do this with a new (to me) airliner with a FMC I don’t understand well) is forget simbrief for a minute (it usually doesn’t propgate SIDs and STARs or active runways into FMC), and just spawn your aircraft on a departure runway with no flightplan, and go into FMC and enter departure runway, SID, arrival STAR and arrival runway (+ approach too eg. ILS R08 + transition etc). Hit EXE, and you will have a sort of route (just with no intermediate waypoints). go into LEGS and remove discontinuities. There wil likely be one after the SID and before the STAR. Just move first waypoint of STAR over the discontinuity after the last point of SID hit EXE and you now have a route albeit one with a straight line between end of SID and start of STAR. It works though as a first attempt, and you can fly it. Just engage autopilot and LNAV once airbourne. If that works for a flight, then go load in a full simmbrief flightplan, then add in departure runway, SID, STAR and arrival runway, remove discontinuities and you should be all set.
Apart from that you can move onto performance criteria that helps with VNAV. So block fuel, reserves, zero fuel weight, cruise alt, cruise wind, takeoff flaps, cog etc. (currently you enter this manually from simbrief briefing into FMC init pages, hopefully this gets automated when EFB finally gets released.)
I use Navigraph to visualise SIDs STARs and departure/arrival runways, and find it an invaluable tool. Others use LIttle Nav Map. Navigraph is great for keeping your AIRACs up to date in 737 (as well as other add on aircraft)
Note: if you are doing an ILS approach if it’s available, you need to tune in ILS frequency manually with the 737 it doesn’t get automatically tuned in like it does on the A320NX.