Can the Altitude be incremented in steps of 1000 feet? 737-800

[NickW61]

Is there a way to change the Altitude increment step from 100 to 1000 on the MCP (Collins)? Other aircraft often do this by "pressing" the knob - but this does not appear to be an option in the 737-800. Have I missed something?

Thanks in advance
Nick Wallbridge

[Captain Kevin]

Nick, PMDG requires you to sign your posts with your first and last name, which you agreed to when you created an account here. Failure to do so can result in posts being removed without warning, which would make it difficult for us to help you should that happen. You can set up a signature to avoid forgetting by following the instructions here:

https://forum.pmdg.com/forum/main-forum/general-discussion-news-and-announcements/3201-signature-banners-signature-instructions-and-other-pmdg-forum-resources-updated-25feb19

I didn't think the 737, or really any Boeing aircraft, for that matter, had the option of doing that. On the 747 and 777, pushing the knob in would be altitude intervene. If you were going to step climb to a different altitude and you were using VNAV, you could set the MCP to the higher altitude, push the altitude knob, and the plane would start climbing. Or if you came across an altitude restriction in the FMC and you wanted to override it, you could press the knob and do that.

[DDowns]

It's been too long to trust my memory but I believe the 777 has a selector for 100's/1000's... I think. You are correct, it is certainly not a knob press.

[NickW61]

Thanks for the quick response. I did "sign" the post manually - but have now added a "Post Signature" as per the link you provided (would never have found it otherwise!)

[bobsk8]

Just press your shift key while scrolling the altitude knob, it will move much faster.

[Captain Kevin]

Thanks for the quick response. I did "sign" the post manually - but have now added a "Post Signature" as per the link you provided (would never have found it otherwise!)

If you fixed it after I initially saw it, I must have not seen it. Sorry.

[NickW61]

Just press your shift key while scrolling the altitude knob, it will move much faster.

Thanks for that Bob - for me Shift when mouse-wheel scrolling on the Altitude selector stops it changing the altitude entirely (737-800 Collins MCP in MSFS). However I then tried CTRL and ALT and both of these do seem to make the mouse-wheel scroll go faster. I also found that if you hold any of Shift, CTRL or ALT and then click and hold the left mouse button this also scrolls you through quicker than using the mouse-wheel scroll. So I have a solution - thank you.

[Emi]

You can also move it quite fast by holding the left mousebutton to increase or decrease altitude and at the same time scrolling with the wheel. That's how I usually do it. Works really well in pretty much any MSFS addon.

In the real 737 you can only increase it in steps on hundrets as well.

[Hendrik96]

Thanks a lot for this tip! Today I tried it out to move the knobs fast with holding the mousebutton + scrolling and it works very good, especially because it can be done one handed. Until now I always used the shift key to speed turning up, but especially in manual flight it's not an option because it requiers two hands. The fastest way to do it is all together: holding left mouse click+shift+scrolling.

[JacCottam]

If you wanted you could explore SPAD.next or FSUIPC to do this. The way I have mine set up now I use a stream deck that does increments of 1,000. But in regards to a selector it’s not on the 737 but the 787 and 777 have one.

[Kevin Hall]

You get much faster rate of change of altitude by simply left clicking the mouse on the left or right side of the altitude knob (i.e. when the circular ccw or cw arrows are displayed when you hover over it). Switch to the mouse wheel for fine tuning.

[NickW61]

Thanks for all the feedback

[Want2BFlyin]

One thing to remember is that the selector knobs on the MCP in the 737 appear to be "smart." What I mean by that is if you rapidly rotate the altitude knob with your mouse wheel, or hardware controller if you have one with a rotating knob that you can use, the first few "clicks" of the knob will adjust the altitude in increments of 100 feet, but then continuing to rotate the knob will provide a larger increment. I vaguely recall this behavior in previous simulators as well, so I think it is a feature of the 737 and not of MSFS. What I have found in MSFS is if I rapidly rotate the knob for four clicks, that will give me a 1,000 foot change from the altitude that was set previously (that is clicks of the knob's rotation, not clicking the mouse rapidly).

[Emi]

One thing to remember is that the selector knobs on the MCP in the 737 appear to be "smart." What I mean by that is if you rapidly rotate the altitude knob with your mouse wheel, or hardware controller if you have one with a rotating knob that you can use, the first few "clicks" of the knob will adjust the altitude in increments of 100 feet, but then continuing to rotate the knob will provide a larger increment. I vaguely recall this behavior in previous simulators as well, so I think it is a feature of the 737 and not of MSFS. What I have found in MSFS is if I rapidly rotate the knob for four clicks, that will give me a 1,000 foot change from the altitude that was set previously (that is clicks of the knob's rotation, not clicking the mouse rapidly).

That's a feature of PMDG to make your life easier, but nothing the real plane has. In the real plane each "click" is 100ft.

[Want2BFlyin]

That's a feature of PMDG to make your life easier, but nothing the real plane has. In the real plane each "click" is 100ft.

Ah, good to know. I'm glad PMDG put this in, because otherwise I think I would wear out the knob on my Honeycomb Bravo much much sooner.

[DDowns]

I've been watching this discussion wondering why I don't have this problem. I am using AAO and I created RPN scripts for most bindings, and found with the MCP knobs that I had to use two different buttons on my controllers because one assignment was a rapid change in target value so I had to create a second assignment to slow things down to make it easier to set a specific value.

For example for MCP ALT INCRE the script is 40008 (>K: Rotor_Brake) where the LVAR for the knob is 400 and 08 is the rotor code for mouse wheel increase (07 is used for decrease). The LVAR of 400 comes right from the PMDG mouse behaviors file. With AAO, you first create the RPN script and then assign it to a controller button/switch or keyboard key. This is where I made the difference between fast and slow. Setting up the fast mode I select REPEAT at MED speed and the slow mode is REPEAT at MED speed with ADAPT option. The adapt option increases the speed of the repetition the longer the event is active.

It takes me about six seconds to roll the altitude up from 10000 to a flight level, and then using the slow I adjust the final steps to reach the target value.

In all honesty, I've never used the mouse (trackball in my case) to control the MCP knobs in the VC Cockpit, so I'm the last to ask for advice on how to best do that.

[Fleng200]

Come on, Dan. “wondering why I don't have this problem”
And then start explaining the use of scripted software to tackle this problem in a way the average user will refrain from.
It is a solution, so thanks for sharing, but don’t frame this as an easy solution.

[DDowns]

Come on, Dan. “wondering why I don't have this problem”
And then start explaining the use of scripted software to tackle this problem in a way the average user will refrain from.
It is a solution, so thanks for sharing, but don’t frame this as an easy solution.

LOL I didn't think it was difficult. Once I figured out the rotor_brake function (using the old FSX SDK) and the AAO UI the solution just appeared.

[KMan2100]

That's a feature of PMDG to make your life easier, but nothing the real plane has. In the real plane each "click" is 100ft.

Huh I didn't know that. I just assumed that's how it was in the real airplane. Is there an option in the FMS settings to turn that feature off? If not I wonder how complicated it would be for PMDG to add an option to the aircraft settings in the FMS to disable it? While I know it makes things quicker, now that I have the new cockpit master MCP I would love to be able to fly the plane with as many true to life systems as possible.

[Emi]

Huh I didn't know that. I just assumed that's how it was in the real airplane. Is there an option in the FMS settings to turn that feature off? If not I wonder how complicated it would be for PMDG to add an option to the aircraft settings in the FMS to disable it? While I know it makes things quicker, now that I have the new cockpit master MCP I would love to be able to fly the plane with as many true to life systems as possible.

There's no such option. No plans to add one either. It's not about how complicated it would be, but about if there's demand for it. Seeing that you're the first since the release of the PMDG 737NGX back in 2011 asking for it there's probably not a lot of demand.

[KMan2100]

There's no such option. No plans to add one either. It's not about how complicated it would be, but about if there's demand for it. Seeing that you're the first since the release of the PMDG 737NGX back in 2011 asking for it there's probably not a lot of demand.

Okay thanks for the quick reply Emanuel. Not a huge deal.