Autoflight: Mode Control Panel (MCP) Overview

Captain Al

This is a Subsonic Flight Training briefing on Autoflight – Overview of the Mode Control Panel (MCP).

This Training Tips presentation will focus on an overview of the Mode Control Panel. Roll modes, Pitch modes, Autothrottle modes, A/P and A/T engage and disconnect are discussed, as well as a description of toggle switches, rotary switches, windows, push button switches, and the gang bar associated with the Mode Control Panel (MCP)

3 thoughts on “Autoflight: Mode Control Panel (MCP) Overview”

  1. Good Day Captain Al,
    Thank you so much for your great Flight Training Briefings. They are very instructional and easy to understand. It is a real pleasure to watch them and I spent the last few hours doing so. Luckely, I happened to find your briefings thanks to the PMDG forum on AVSIM earlier today where I saw your note on some problems with the FMC. I was actually searching the forum to find if anybody else had a particular problem with an airport with one ILS frequency for 3 runways, 2 of them having the same heading! (EBLG). I am familiar with double-ended ILS for 1 runway but have not seen another airport with 3 runways on the same frequency and could not get the sim to switch to my chosen runway that happened to be the only one with Cat 3 capability and the fog was way to dense to think of landing using the other modes. I enjoy flying the cargo versions of the PMDG 747-400F/ERF using actual flights from Flightaware or Flightradar24 as a base. Your expertise and explaining it so clearly is a great upgrade to finding answers to any questions that arise via the internet.

    It is rare to find such great and based on knowledge instructional videos on the Boeing aircraft, especially the 747-400. I hope you will add a lot more briefings both about the aircraft systems, fuel, hydraulics, electrical systems come to my mind as well as videos on the finer points of flying SIDs and STARs, RNAV and ILS/GLS approaches. The list is huge and so is the effort you are putting into making those great videos.

    Thanks again and I hope you will find the time and enthusiasm to continue to produce these briefings and I am especially looking forward to the 747-8 ones as that will be my plane of choice out of my pretty full hangar in the future.

    Greetings and many thanks from ‘fan’ from Switzerland

    1. Thank you so much Charles for taking the time to post your comments. I was not even considering covering systems, but maybe I will start another category of systems and cover them from a pilot standpoint. Time is the issue, but this is something I am enjoying and will continue to build the content over time. Thank you for subscribing and all the best. Your country is one I would love to visit one day. Austria and Switzerland have always looked so beautiful.

      I will be covering RNAV, IAN, VNAV Non-precision approaches, and ILS/GLS Approaches. I think PMDG will put out a fantastic 747-8, looking forward to that. While these simulations are not perfect, I have found errors, they are pretty darn good.

  2. Thanks Al for your reply. I look forward to your briefs on the various approaches. I am interested in the systems as someone who is generally being curious and wanting to know how things work. The approaches are, however, surely of more interest to a wider group of people.
    Will be sure to check your website out frequently.

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