To program the Airbus fmc, for a quick cold and dark startup we need basically three pages: 1. the Init page, 2. the flight plan page and 3. the performance page. the general concept is the same for every airbus, but as in real life, where each airline company has different options in the fmc, the same happens in the computer simulators, each developer’s fmc has some differences. also there are …. 1 million different ways, to setup the fmc, each user has its own way. what i show here is just a general example. i could avoid some steps to make it faster or i could add some steps to follow the real procedures.

1. INIT

to access the init page, press the init key on the fmc keyboard.

the init page, can be again divided in: a. the main page where we insert the departure and arrival airports, the flight number, the cost index number where when in fully automatic flight we arrange the speed versus the fuel economy and the flight altitude, b. the irs alignment page, c. the winds page and d. the weights page

a. main init page

a1. first, we type using the fmc keyboard the departure and arrival airport in from/to format. in our example it is LGSA/LGAV. what we type appears in the down part of the fmc screen. then we press the key next to from/to field on the up right corner of the fmc screen. at the next screen we confirm our selection and we press return to return to the primary init page screen.

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a2. again, by using the fmc keyboard, we type the flight number and we insert it to the flt nbr field.

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a3. then the cost index number, the bigger it is the faster the plane goes but uses more but only at the fully automated flight mode.

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a4. at the crz fl/temp field we insert the altitude our airplane will be at its cruise level, by writing the 3 first digits only. in our example, 21000ft will be 210. automatically we get the predicted temperature at this altitude.

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b. irs init

press on the irs init key, then align on ref, then confirm align and return

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c. wind

press on the wind key, then wind request and return

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note: in our example, the flightfactor a320 airbus, the wind data appears immediately. in other simulators it takes same time. you don’t need to wait there. just press return and continue with the setup

d. weight

as you are in the init main screen, press either the left or right cursor keys on the fmc keyboard. then press weight request and then boarding weight. you can exit the weights screen by pressing again on the left or right cursor keys.

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note: this is a page, which is different almost in every airbus simulator. but the general concept is the same. you have to insert manually or automatically the fuel weight which usually is called block, and the aircraft passenger and cargo weight which usually is called zfw (zero fuel weight). write down the zfwcg number or just cg (center of gravity) which we will need later in the performance page. of course we can come anytime back here and get this number. in our example it is 25.7

2. F-PLN

the flight plan page can be accessed by pressing the F-PLN key on the fmc keyboard.

we can divide the flight plan page in three parts: a. departure, b. arrival, c. discontinuities

a. departure

at the main flight plan screen, on the top left we see the departure airport, which in our case is the lgsa. we press the key next to it and at the next screen we choose departure. then we have to choose the takeoff runway. in our example we have 2 options, no11 and no29 runway. we choose the 11. then we have to choose the sid. by using the up or down cursor keys on the fmc keyboard, we move through the sids, till we find the one we want to use. we choose the ruso2b sid. then we press the tmpy insert key.

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note: if we are at a big airport, with many runways, we use also there the up and down cursor keys to move through the runways. also some airports have a trans point after the sid.

b. arrival

as we are back at the main flight plan screen, left down, we press the key next to the arrival airport (dest), in our case it is the lgav. in the next screen we press arrival, then by using the up or down cursor keys we find the desired approach, in our example it is the ils21lz and we press the key next to it to select it. then we find and select the star, for us it is bibe2b. in case we have a via, it will appear in the next screen, kea for us. in the next screen we verify our selections are correct, by checking the arrival approach (appr), via, star and trans (we don’t have in our example). if something is wrong, we cancel the flight plan by pressing tmpy f-pln. if everything is ok, we press tmpy insert and we are done with the arrival of our flight plan.

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c. discontinuities

after we finish with the flight plan’s departure and arrival, most of the time we have one or more discontinuities. to find them, we use the up and down cursor keys of the fmc keyboard. when we find a discontinuity (in our example there is one between rusos and bibex), we press the clr key, down right at the fmc keyboard. in the bottom of the fmc screen will appear CLR. then we press the key on the left side of the discontinuity to delete it. finally we press tmpy insert (or tmpy erase if we made a mistake). as we see, rusos and bibex are next to each other now. (don’t mind if something else is also there, there are steps of the flight plan which can change during the flight or some of our choices).

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3. PERF

the last page on the airbus fmc we are going to program, is the performance one. to access it, press the perf key on the fmc keyboard.

the fields we are going to setup are the flaps, the initial trim and the v speeds. we insert the flaps and initial trim values in flaps/trim format. as we can see on the perf screen it is written as flaps/ths.

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99% in our flights we are going to use flaps at position 1 during the takeoff. but how we are going to calculate the trim value? remember the note in d.weight section where i told you to write down the cg value? it was 25.7 in our example. we turn our head down right, on the throttle console. there is the trim wheel. as we can see on the picture above, inside the red circle, on the left there is a cg value. you don’t have to be precise but estimate where the 25.7 is in general. it is just a little under the cg 25 value. then we look on the right, and we estimate the value next to the green line. it is around 0.7. and it is written up. so our trim is UP0.7. we type using the fmc keyboard 1/UP0.7 and we insert it to the flaps/ths field using the key next to it. to get the v2 and vr values we just need to press the keys on their left side. but the v1 value we have to type it. on dry condition it is vr-1, so 127-1=126. but if we had rain, then the value would be vr-10, so 127-10=117.

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note: performance page is the page where each developer has a totally different approach. for example in the aerosoft airbus, we just have to type the flap value, insert it and automatically we get all the other values. so the best way to program the performance is to read the manual. or watch youtube videos. or ask me 🙂