9 December 2022
Following the release of our last MSFS
146 Professional update in late September, which included significant upgrades to the EFB tablet among many other improvements and fixes, the development team have been busy working on even more upgrades for release in the coming weeks.
We are nearly finished with the EFB performance data functionality, which will include a dynamic CG chart, TMS thrust and take-off and landing distance calculators, and we'll share some previews of that soon. In this entry we’ll be focusing on the UNS-1 custom FMS.
The UNS-1 is an older style of FMS than that which is currently found in our 146 and is typical of what you would have found in service during the 90s and 00s. It will be recognisable to anyone who’s flown the Q400 or Learjet 45 and serves the same purpose as the existing modern FMS in our 146 – providing GPS navigation with outputs to the autopilot (LNAV) and HSI. The navigation data is courtesy of Navigraph, allowing you to use the very latest AIRAC cycles.
Additional controls have been added to the EFB configuration menu to allow you to quickly toggle between the existing modern FMS and the new classic FMS without the need to switch aircraft variants or restart the flight. You can also still disable the FMS entirely if you prefer conventional navigation.
Please note that some visual aspects of the FMS, such as the font type and colour, are likely to change as we get closer to release.
We’ll begin this quick overview on the flight plan menu. The UNS-1 will have the option to load an MSFS flight plan and save the current flight plan.
Full SID/STAR support is included, with the ability to select transitions and approaches. A quirk of the UNS-1 is shown here, with selections made using a numbered list rather than the LSKs.
The flight plan page is similar to that found on our existing FMS, showing the previous and next legs, their distances, headings and any altitude constraints. Here we can see the SID selected earlier.
The UNS-1 also provides real-time fuel monitoring. With the passenger, cargo and fuel loads inputted prior to flight, the FMS will provide information on fuel flow, current fuel onboard, endurance and range.
Real-time performance information is also available, including groundspeed, wind direction/speed, OAT and ETE.
Additional information is shown on other pages, such as the navigation page shown here.
The FMS is fully integrated with the autopilot (LNAV) and HSI, just like the existing FMS. Distance, direct track and deviation to the next waypoint are all shown on the HSI.
The FMS also has VNAV functionality, although as with the real aircraft this isn’t integrated with the VNAV mode of the autopilot so you will need to make use of the other pitch modes (IAS, VS etc) to manage your climbs and descents.
With altitude or flight level constraints for the flight plan waypoints and the desired vertical speed inputted into the FMS, the VNAV page will provide information on the top-of-descent point and target vertical speed.
That concludes this quick tour of the UNS-1 FMS. It’s currently undergoing extensive testing and we’ll bring you some video guides as we near release.
