Simviation Forums

Finished my Gatwick-Newark flight in the 747-400 today; IFR GPS direct. Had a tailwind most of the way (real weather, honest!) and arrived on schedule with plenty of fuel to spare.
Not sure if I had everything set up right (possibly no pax in the w&b sheet; I'm still figuring all this heavy-flying stuff out and didn't want to get too into it), but it seemed real enough. Got handed off about a million times- that seemed pretty real!
 Got very boring after about 4 hrs., so I did speed up the sim a little now and then (and of course ATC called me every time I did so!).
 Made a decent landing, thanks to a GPS-guided ILS approach. A bit long, but after uncoupling the AP I managed to put it down on the runway, instead of in the snow.
 Feels great... now at last I understand the allure of the heavies.
  Must give props to Werner Schott's very cool little manual/checklists; they print out into a little booklet, and contain enough info. for a noob like me to make such a flight in fairly high pseudo-realism. I've DLd a bunch more, and will probably double back for some FS9 lessons in the Baron, King Air, etc. until I can survive the ATP checkride... in its own way, this kind of flying is as exciting as bombing around VFR in light singles!

PS- look for pix soon from the flight- very sweet POSKY Virgin Atlantic model!

Congrats!

With the sim it is hard to explain but heavies are kind of like a expensive luxury car. They are slow to turn but fly like a kite. You can really appreciate the heavies in bad weather as they do not get bounced quite as much as the lighter craft do. But you have to feel the heavies to understand.