Sadly, it’s the way of these forums over recent years I’ve found. There seems to be two highly polarized blocks of opinion on the forum, and several members in each faction are constantly looking to antagonize the other, and drawing them into yet another flame war. Hence the voice of reason & decent debate is usually drowned out in a cacophony of infantile nationalistic rants, pompous jingoism and in alot of cases, it all spirals further into a fusillade of childish taunts until the moderators feel the need to step in.

I’ll be the first to admit, I did lash out myself during that thread, and I apologise to the decent members of the board for my part in adding fuel to the fire.

Sorry to hijack the thread, but could I ask whether anyone here uses any stand alone planning utilities for FS2004? I’m looking to plan a flight using my Just Flight 777-300ER from Amsterdam Schipol to St Maarten Princess Juliana International in the Netherlands Antilles, however, using the default planner in FS2004 doesn’t seem to pre-load the plan into the Flight Management Computer, and it looks as if I’ll have to do it manually through the FMC Control Display Unit’s keypad. Therefore, what I was hoping for is something I can use outside FS2004 to create my plan, print it off and then have it to hand whilst I’m punching in my waypoints, frequencies etc… Could anyone recommend anything?

A sequence of take off shots from St-Maarten with a British Airways Boeing 777-200LR from Justflight’s 777 Professional pack.

Taxiing down the runway toward the threshold

Looping around and lining up…..

Powerrrrrrrr! The roar of the twin GE-90’s roar reach an ear-splitting crescendo as the mighty 777 thunders down the asphalt………

Up,up and away!

Letting it all hangout

………Then promptly putting it all away before I get a restraining order….

Thank you 🙂

Also, please note, crappy graphics should cease operation as of tomorrow, thanks to my shiney new ATi X1950 XT arriving 😀

Why has part of PIA’s fleet been banned from European airspace? Environmental/noise concerns? Or something else?

If I touch the brakes, i.e. squeeze my joystick’s trigger, does that in effect cancel the auto-braking? I usually set it to 2 at St. Maarten, deploy fulls flaps just before touch down and have the spoilers armed and ready. I aim for an approach speed of about 160-175 knots.

It never cease to amaze as to how they can squeeze those big 747-400’s onto the tiny Princess Juliana Int’l Airport on St Maarten. I have trouble brining my 737-800 to a stop before the bay at the other end!:eek: And even when I do manage it, I usually have to use one of the semi circular hard standings to turn it around and taxi back up to one of the runway exits. Needless to say, I’m a bit anxious about trying it with one of my Boeing 777’s from my 777 Professional pack. 😮

BTW, is there a default keyboard shortcut to the thrust reverser’s in FS-9? I often find myself fumbling around the centre pedestal/ throttle quadrant at the most inopportune of times….

Well, here’s my first flight with FS-2004. I’m still sort of finding my feet with it, so please try to bear with me here. I’ve started with just doing a simple circuit for the time being at Vancouver, flying Cargolux’s Boeing 747-400F “City of Schenden” to get me used to handling the beast in a circuit.

Lift off, and climb out, much to the relief of a departure control at Vancouver intl I’d imagine.

Circling around the city, I swing back around in a racetrack pattern and align myself with the Runway. (unfortunately I was too busy manually flying the aircraft to get a pic of the surprisingly smooth touch down I somehow managed)

And we’re down. With autobraking inadvertently (:o ) set to max (bit over zealous I know) and spoilers armed, I throw the engines into reverse and bring the big Boeing to a complete halt, unintentionally, in the middle of the runway. 😮

Disengaging the autobrakes and retracting the spoilers, I then throttle up rather too gently out of nervousness, gradually scampering rather bashfully off the runway, having probably already caused several go-arounds, and brining chaos to western Canada’s air transport system. 🙁