http://homepage.mac.

com/cormacshaw/xpirishhub/

X-Tutorial

The FMS in X-Plane

Updated for X-Plane v6.70 – 9 May 2003

© Cormac Shaw 2003. This tutorial may be reproduced in whole or in part on a freely accessible website
provided the original author is acknowledged. It may not be incorporated in any commercial product without
the prior written permission of the author.

Introduction
A Flight Management System is a modern automated flight planning and navigation instrument
that is found on most modern airliners, military aircraft, corporate jets and a good number of
helicopters and general aviation aircraft. The 'system' actually consists of several components,
one of which is the screen/keypad terminal or display/input unit (terminology varies from source to
source) that is usually situated, on airliners, on the forward-most section of the central pedestal.
Airliners will also often have two or even three such units. In X-Plane, it is this display/input unit
that is called the 'FMS'.
There are two variants of the FMS available in PlaneMaker, the 'FMS' and the 'FMS Small' - both
have the same functionality and general layout, the only difference is the amount of space they
occupy on screen. Make sure that you choose a plane that has an FMS installed on its cockpit
panel, most of the 'stock' aircraft that come with v6.xx do not as they were designed before the
instrument was made available in v6.14. At the moment, the instrument in the simulator is much
less sophisticated than its real world counterpart, reproducing only a few functions of the real
thing but using it can seem complicated to new X-Plane users nonetheless. The guide the follows
is intended to show you how to enter a flight plan from one airport to another with several en
route 'waypoints' (Waypoints are specific locations along your flight plan, the journey between two
waypoints is known as a 'plan segment') at specified altitudes and how to get the plane to
automatically fly that route. An example route from Dublin, Ireland to London Heathrow, UK is
used to illustrate it.
Entering a flight plan
To follow the example, open an airliner with a FMS and locate it at Dublin, EIDW.

At the start of your flight, the FMS screen will display "Plan Segment 00" on the first line and
"???" on the second, where each waypoints type and code will be displayed (1). While your
airport of departure, before you move anywhere, click the INIT button (2) on the FMS's keypad to
initiate a flight plan. You will see the top of the display
change from "Plan Segment 00" to "Plan Segment 01" as
the FMS has entered the airport you are currently at as the
initial waypoint (00) and moved the flight plan on to the
next entry for you to enter it.
Note: In versions of X-Plane prior to v6.70, the segment
numbering is slightly different and if you press the PREV button
at this point to change the view to "Plan Segment 01" and you
will see the first waypoint listed as " EIDW / Dublin / Fly at -----ft".
Click NEXT to return to the blank "Plan Segment 02".
Ok, so now the FMS knows where you are, you can tell it
where you'll be going today. Generally speaking, there are
four repeating steps to enter the second and subsequent
waypoints in a flight plan:
• First click the appropriate FMS keypad button for the type of waypoint - AIRP for an
airport, NDB for a non-directional beacon, VOR for a VHF Omni-directional Range
transmitter, FIX for one of the thousands of pre-programmed, named and charted
fixes/waypoints or LAT LON to enter a specific location by latitude/longitude that can't be
determined by any of the other types (3). In our example flight plan, the first entry is for a
non-directional beacon so click on the NDB button.
• When you have selected the waypoint type, the "???" entry on the second line of the
FMS display will be replaced by a type code and a cursor will appear to its right. Type in
the identifier code for the waypoint using the FMS's on-screen keypad, not your
keyboard. An airport code will be 2-4 characters long. An NDB or VOR code will have 2-3
characters and a fix will have 5 characters. Note that naviaid and fix codes may be
duplicated worldwide. In X-Plane, the FMS when you enter a code that occurs more than
once in the sim's database (the nav.dat and fix.dat files), it will assume that you want the
navaid or fix which is closest to the previous waypoint - this works well in most scenarios.
Entering a latitude and longitude requires a few more keytaps, five characters each and
you must use leading zeros where appropriate. Use the +/- button (4) on the FMS's
keypad to get westerly/southerly latitudes/longitudes. When you have entered a valid
code for an airport or navaid, it's name will appear on the third line immediately below the
code. In our example flight plan, the first waypoints code is "OE" so type 'O-E' on the
FMS keypad.
• After entering the code, you need to enter a target altitude at which you will fly towards
the waypoint. To do this move to the fourth line of the waypoint's details by clicking on the
fourth button down at the side of the screen (5). Then type in the required altitude - note
that you must always type in five digits so if you want to fly at an altitude below 10,000 ft,
you must enter leading zeros. In our example flight plan, the first waypoint is on the
departure and so relatively low at 3,000ft. Type '0-3-0-0-0' on the FMS keypad.
• Press NEXT to move to the next waypoint to enter its details in the same manner. See
the table at the end of this page to get all the waypoints for our example flight plan.
To delete any waypoint, move to it by using the NEXT or PREV button (6)and then click on the
CLR button (7).
For the last waypoint, your destination, you will presumably enter an airport code such as "EGLL,
London Heathrow" in our example. Note that if you enter the airport's height above sea level for

2
this waypoint or even "00000ft", you are likely to fly into the ground before you get there! If you
know that the penultimate waypoint is on the decent to or relatively near, i.e., within 80 miles, to
your destination airport, then its best to enter either a pattern/approach altitude for the final
waypoint (the airport). If the last leg is going to be fairly long, then enter an appropriate cruise
altitude. Or, as in our example, the flight plan entered includes the STAR in detail and the last leg
is essentially the final approach, you can enter an altitude which is the airport altitude plus your
minimum safe altitude AGL for the approach.
Okay, now the FMS knows where we are, where we want to go and the route to follow. Its time to
start up the engines...

Following a FMS flight plan

You can, of course, fly your flight plan manually.
Routes from one waypoint to the next are shown as
bright red lines (8) on the EFIS Moving Map (the
heading bug is a dark red line). Most aircraft that have
an FMS will also have a moving map. Also, HSI
instruments can have their sources switched to
GPS/FMS mode to show the direction to the current
waypoint. The EFIS should also have a DME-to-
waypoint display (9) which will show the ID code for
the currently active waypoint, the estimated time of
arrival at current speed and the distance to it in
nautical
miles.
To fly a
flight plan
by
autopilot,
before you take off use the PREV/NEXT keys to get to
the second waypoint ("Plan segment 02") and ensure
it is the active waypoint by pressing the "->." button
(10). Taxi to the runway (It is assumed that you'll use
EIDW's Rwy28 in our example) and take off using
manual controls. Once you've climbed out you can
activate the autopilot's FMS-following mode by
pressing the appropriate button on the panel. In most
X-Plane aircraft, this will be marked GPS or FMC or
FMS, though it can be labelled otherwise, such as
LNAV (11) on some 737s. The autopilot will start
turning the aircraft towards the active waypoint. This
action will also transfer the waypoint's 'Fly at' altitude
to the target altitude display on the autopilot (12).
Activate the autopilot's ALT/HLD mode and the
autopilot will climb the aircraft to the target altitude at
the climb rate set in the autopilot VVI setting (which
you can change to a value suitable to your aircraft's
performance). NB: if you want the autopilot to control
throttle, you must set the desired speed and activate
the autopilot's SPD, IAS or ATHR mode manually.
When the aircraft reaches the currently active
waypoint, the FMS's active waypoint will automatically
switch to the next Plan Segment and any altitude
change will be passed to the autopilot. You do nothing

3
unless you want to change the speed or rate-of-
climb/descent settings on the autopilot.
If for some reason, the FMS fails to switch to the next
waypoint automatically, you can force it to step forward
by using the NEXT button to display the desired
waypoint and then the "->." button to activate it. You can
also use this technique to skip waypoints if you so wish.
Note that in v6.70 of X-Plane, the simulator does not
anticipate changes in course as well as it did in earlier
versions and, having reached one waypoint it may
'overcook' the turn and take sometime to get on the right
course to the next waypoint. Hopefully this will improve
again in v7.xx. Tight turns (>45 degrees) will always
cause the plane to stray some way from the point-to-
point red line on the EFIS Moving Map (13).
As you approach your destination you will want to
decouple the autopilot from the FMS by deactivating or
changing the mode on the autopilot. Exactly when to do
this depends on the precision of your entered flight plan
and how you intend to land the plane. If you are
intending an ILS approach or any other published
approach which utilises navaids then you should have
your flight plan bring you to a point, usually about 10-30
miles out where you can intercept the navaid signals. If you are going to use X-Plane's ATC to
guide you in, you may want to disengage the FMS somewhat earlier. If you will be using a visual
approach then you can enter a flight plan that will bring you to within sight of the airfield on the
runway heading at an appropriate decent rate (14).

Saving & Reusing FMS Flight Plans

You will have noticed that it takes a while to enter a detailed flight plan. The good news is that
you can save/load flight plans that you wish to use again and again to/from discreet files at any
time using the LD and SV buttons on the bottom-left of the FMS keypad. File names should have
a ".fms" extension and are stored in X-Plane's ../Output/FMS plans/ folder. Flight plans can be
downloaded from internet sites too, there's a Flight Plan section at X-Plane.org. The popular third-
party application ' Goodway Flight Planner' is fully integrated with X-Plane's FMS instrument too.
You can get information of how to use it at the Goodway website.

Example Flight Plan: Dublin - London Heathrow

This ../pics/resources/fms1/fms1_05.jpgflight plan is a short-haul flight suitable for a medium
sized airliner between Dublin (EIDW) and London Heathrow (EGLL). I recommend using the Aer
Lingus Airbus A321-214 or Boeing 737-448 available from my website as both aircraft regularly
ply this route. The flight departs Dublin's Runway 28 using the 'LIFFY2A' SID (Standard
Instrument Departure) (see map 1) to join the recommended route between EIDW and EGLL, i.e.,
east via upper air route UL975 to the Wallasey VOR and then south-east via upper air route UB3,
cruising at 31,000ft. Approach to Heathrow's Runway 27L is via the 'BNN1A' STAR (Standard
Terminal Arrival). ../pics/resources/fms1/fms1_06.jpgUnder normal operation, the STAR will
take you as far as the Bovingdon (BNN) VOR at 9,000ft, after which you contact ATC who will
vector you to intercept the ILS for Rwy 27L. However, the FMS flight plan includes further
segments that will allow the plane to be follow the correct radio-failure procedure to intercept the
ILS or even to follow the glidepath to 1 mile short of the runway (see map 2).
You can download the ".fms" file for this flight plan here or enter it manually from the table below

4
Seg Type Code Name Target Alt Notes
00 INIT EIDW Dublin n/a Initial Waypoint
01 NDB OE Dublin NDB 3,000 SID "LIFFY2A", climb
rate 2,500-3,000ft/min,
02 VOR DUB Dublin VOR-DME 8,000 IAS 245kt below
03 NDB RSH Rush NDB 12,000 10,000ft, 270kt above
10,000ft
04 FIX LIFFY LIFFY 19,000
05 FIX GINIS GINIS 31,000 Upper air route UL675,
climb rate 1,000-
06 FIX NATKO NATKO 31,000 1,500ft/min, IAS
07 FIX LYNAS LYNAS 31,000 290kt/Mach 0.78

08 FIX ROLEX ROLEX 31,000

09 VOR WAL Wallasey VOR-DME 31,000
10 NDB WHI Whitgate NDB 31,000 Upper air route UB3, IAS
Mach 0.78
11 VOR HON Honiley VOR-DME 31,000
12 NDB WCO Westcott NDB 15,000 STAR "BNN1A", decent
rate 2,000-2,500ft/min,
13 VOR BNN Bovingdon VOR-DME 9,000 IAS Mach 0.70/ 270kt
above 10,000ft, 250kt
below 10,000ft
At this point, you will normally contact ATC and ask for vectors to EGLL ILS 27L
14 FIX BNN04 BNN04 7,000 Approach, decent rate
1,000-2,000ft/min to
15 FIX BNN19 BNN19 2,500 ILL75 then 3%
16 FIX ILL75 ILL75 2,500 glideslope, IAS 220kt to
ILL75, 180kt to ILL04,
17 FIX ILL04 ILL04 1,400 160kt to ILL01, then
18 FIX ILL01 ILL01 450 landing speed.

19 AIRP EGLL London Heathrow 280 Destination

MAP 1

5
MAP 2