777 flight management question

[felixthecat]

Often I will have a step climb indicated on the FMC ie Climb :Now yet on the ND the SC (step climb) O icon on the ND is way down the route.

Can anyone explain this? I have asked many TRIs to no avail

[777fly]

When you load all your route data into the CDU, the FMC will calculate appropriate step climbs along the route. If you scan through the legs pages you can see where these are predicted. So, let's say you are cruising at FL350 and you approach a step climb recommendation to FL370. If you cannot climb for whatever reason as you pass the climb waypoint, the VNAV page will then continuously give you a step NOW advisory. Having bypassed the FL370 climb point, the FMC now looks at your next step point (FL370 to FL390 with 2000ft steps) and that is what you now see way ahead on the active track as a 0 point with S/C alongside.
That's the way I see and understand it. Hope it helps....

[777fly]

I meant to add: under the circumstances I described, if you were to change the step interval to 4000 ft, the step NOW advisory will disappear and the step climb advisory information on the CDU will relate to the S/C point that you are seeing further along the ND track.