"The 747-400
Moderators: Staff, HR, Flight Ops
"Bryan. I.ll second eveything that has been said re the 744f , especially the TRC,s they are great, as for the Cockpit Layouts,an old buddy of mine was Chief Engineer at the Saudi National Airline and at the moment is in Charge of Manufacturing the Tupolev 204 Cargo Ship, based on the 757 Body and he couldn,t believe the realism of the VC on the 744,it truly is a classic, the pre-flight takes about an hour by the book, Bryan your a lost soul now! Mike "
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yoni63
"Mike, I did notice that by the time you get done with preflight and programming info into the FMC it does take a while. No problem, just adds to the realism. Now guys can see why a checklist is so important. Hey by the way, how does our dispatch generator do with the 744F? I would guess it really wouldn't know the difference. I really wish I could go in and generate a practice flight with the dispatch generator, but I don't know if those things go anywhere when you generate them or not? So I haven't tried it. I just didn't want to generate a flight and it not show up on a pirep later. But by the same reason, I am not ready quite yet to fly the 744F on one of our routes, maybe a week or two more and I'll be at that point."
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Brogs
"Bryan. Must say i haven,t attempted the Dispatch Generator with the 744, I think you would have a little difficulty with the co-ordinates re the FMC as opposed to waypoints,also the Fuel to Weight calculations would be wrong as they are generated for the 742, I use the FS Planner and then alter it by hand as required ! Safe Landings, Mike 
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yoni63
"Mike, thanks for the heads up on the flight planning. I did find it to be a mass of decisions to make. I don't know how any after market flight planners would do? I have also just been using the regular FS9 flight planner for point to point navigation and altering it by hand. It would be really nice if PMDG would come out with some type of planner to use that would go hand in hand with the FMC. But guess we need to hide and watch on that one huh? Until then I think the FS9 planner will have to do. One thing I do like is being able to alter fuel after you get into the bird as we can with RFP. I know once you load cargo, you have to go with that cargo or exit FS and restart if you want to change that load. I'm having fun though. I did try to fly my polar flight that was supposed to be flown on the 8th, but it didn't pan out, I did something with the FMC and messed it up, so had to exit, thank heavens it was early on. I will try to make up that flight this weekend hopefully!"
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Brogs
"Bryan It,s a bit of a learning curve right enough, I have a bit of a problem at the moment on takeoff, I spool up the engines to about 70% to stabilise them ,then engage the autothrust for T/O just as I pass 80 kts the brakes kick in, just another little problem to engage the Brain ! Safe Landings, Mike"
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nharwood
"FS Build is my personal favorite for flight planning & integration into payware aircraft. I build all flight plans in FSB and it exports to nearly 100% of my aircraft, from the PMDG series, to the LDS, to Airbus Pro. Then the flight plan sheet includes all the information neede for the 742 INS setup."
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yoni63
"Wow Mike, that really puts a damper on take off!!!! I wonder if its something in the FMC? I also saw Nathan's post on FS Build. I was wondering if anyone has ever polled the most used flight planning software? FS Build looks good, just wondered if there is a favored out there in the Globe Cargo world?"
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nharwood
"I just want to clarify something. I use FS Build to do just that... build my flight plans into various add-on formats and take advantage of customizable aircraft profiles to aid in fuel / step climb planning. The actual "flight plan routing" I do is quite manual (FS Build can create flight plans / routes from scratch) but I like to plan my own routing from a departure, airway and arrival standpoint using real-world routes which I get from various sources. I then simply copy / paste the route into FS Build and it makes the rest happen. I just wanted to clarify how I do things. How you do them is completely up to you!"
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yoni63
"Your right Nathan, I enjoy building my own too. I mean if you are just going to generate one, FS9 can do that, at least most of the time, But like you, I also enjoy making my plans as close to real world and that means doing them by hand. So really, FS Build is alot easier to plan a flight by hand rather than having to scroll all over the map and look for a certain nav point like you have to do in FS9. I once had a great plan going, and while I was scrolling around looking for a certain intersection, FS9 just locked up! 
I had to reboot the whole machine just to go in and have it do it again to me! So I am seriously looking for a good planning tool. So far FS build seems to be a good idea."
I had to reboot the whole machine just to go in and have it do it again to me! So I am seriously looking for a good planning tool. So far FS build seems to be a good idea."-
BarryTheAviator
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yoni63
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cyoo eddie
"Bryan, you can download and use fsnavigator for a trial period, i beleive it is 20 flight plans, then you got to buy a registration key. It also runs behind flight sim, so it takes up some resources there. I use fsbuild, for flight plans, it is not as pretty as fs navigator, but it gets the job done for me. ed mosier 1287"
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yoni63
"Thanks ed, does the program your using run behind FS9? I was hoping to get something that you can plan the flight, print, load, or whatever, then close it before actually starting your flight so it doesn't take up any resources, but I may have to just deal with that. I hate using up any more resources than I have to. Thanks!"