My new toys

[EHM-2127 Andrew]

Just  got my  new baby F1 ATR 72-500 along with FDC Live Cockpit, UT Europe. So now the fun begins learning a new plane and a new way to  fly.

The only  thing  that  i  cant get my  head around is the handbook, read a little but started to  get  lost with all the graphs and maths involed with this plane like working out v v1 vr v2 vr+10 ect its all greek to me.

is there anyoneout there that has a program that will help me with this , some sort of xxcel work sheet ?

Anyway  back  to trying to read this masive so called hand book.

[EHM-2029 Sotiris]

Hi Andrew,

I know that this whole thing can be overwhelming. It's also true that there is a fair bit of physics and maths involved.

As for the hand-book, well; the real thing is a multi-million dollar machine that is meant for experienced operators. As such, it is normal for aircraft to have nice thick hand books.
Furthermore, all this jargon can be a bit overwhelming and intimidating.

To address your first point regarding the calculations, I would personally not do them. I'd check in the manual the speeds for a fully laden bird and always use these speeds.
This is will safely see you through. The only side effect of this is that when less loaded you find yourself airborne at speeds lower than the maximum weight ones.

There are indeed many excel spreadsheets to do these calculations quickly but they usually dedicated to a plane type. What works for a 747 will not be the same as your ATR for example. Hence it is rather difficult to find these unless the handbook itself has some links.

If you don't know what the speeds mean and other jargon then a good place to start is a link proposed by Hector Partidas: http://www.luizmonteiro.com/WBC.htm

I hope this helps you although, as I said earlier, I don't see that you need these calculations until you start strecthing the operational limits of the plane, the airodrome and prevailing conditions.

Till then, take it easy, have fun and don't be afraid to ask.

All the best,

Sotiris

[EHM-2110 Matt]

There is a fuel + vspeed calculator for the F1 ATR72, can't remember the link but its on that metacalf site or whatever it is called lol!

[EHM-2127 Andrew]

thanks guys had some fun last night found it so easy to fly and the FMC was easy to use . took me about 40 minutes to work out how to add delete waypoints and work legs ect. Shes a wonderful bird to fly so now let see if my pilot skills are going to get better with the help of FDC Live cockpit.

upward and onward to the sky, but remember what goes up comes down a lot faster.