Quote:

I spoke to a friend of mine about DME Arcs the other day and he told me that they were actually "never" flown in real life, and when they flew them in the simulator the procedure was always in the flight plan database in the FMC.

This will always depend on the locations they visit there. Since the 747 will do some major hub routes, the use of DME arcs will indeed be limited.
Radar vectors and RNAV stuff may form the main procedures there.
TNCM could offer an arc though.

If you ask a 727 Captain cruising around South America, the outcome may be different and the whole VOR stuff therefore more common.
Africa also makes use of those arcs at almost every spot I flew so far. Doing the ILS 04L at DFFD as we speak. With the NURE1P arrival, you will see an "waypoint arc" there, working around the sim limitations, while the "real" chart shows an arc in the very meaning of it.


I think your assumption could well be true, Michael. My beloved INS works like this all the time, coordinates only.

Quote:

This led to the conclussion that LNAV was not navigating from name to name but from coordinate to coordinate.

This also is a logical and fail save procedure since coordinates are unique, names with limited characters are not.