Originally Posted by
suninmyeyes
I am a little puzzled.
SID heights restrictions are normally programmed into the FMS automatically when the SID is selected. Departures are normally flown in VNAV. Fortunately I have never tried it but if you were to make that same error say out of Heathrow and put FL310 in the alt sel the aircraft would level off automatically at the SID altitude of 6000. Even if hand flying the flight directors would level you at 6000. So my question is did they push the alt sel to clear the initial level off altitude or do IAH SIDS not have level off altitudes programmed into the FMS? If the latter is the case then why not as it would prevent this exact scenario.
Heathrow's altitude restrictions for their SID's are all at specific waypoints. The one used in Houston is not related to a specific fix. Do all the SID's with altitude restrictions not specific to a fix such as the one in Houston have the actual altitude restriction in the FMC?