Flight Crew Flight Instructor; Flight Crew Instrument; Flight Crew Multiengine; Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP); Flight Crew Flight Engineer
Flight Crew Last 90 Days 25; Flight Crew Total 19000; Flight Crew Type 25
Human-Machine Interface; Situational Awareness; Training / Qualification
Aircraft Equipment Problem Less Severe; Deviation - Track / Heading All Types; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Clearance; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy; Flight Deck / Cabin / Aircraft Event Other / Unknown
Air Traffic Control Issued Advisory / Alert; Flight Crew Returned To Clearance; Flight Crew Became Reoriented; Flight Crew Overcame Equipment Problem
Aircraft; Human Factors
On HONIE 8 arrival as we checked in with ATL TRACON we were informed that ILS PRM approaches were now in use (not stated on the ATIS) and we were given a runway change. As pilot flying I re-programmed the FMS - I made all of the changes and pushed enter - while waiting for the FMS (Note: the FMS is slow on the MD88 when making changes) to re-compute we passed the fix on the arrival and the FMS went into heading hold as the fix was now behind us. I went into heading select and turned to maintain the STAR; while I re-programmed the FMS to proceed direct to the next fix - the FMS took what I thought a longer than normal time to process and I pointed this out to the First Officer who then had us go direct to the next fix using his MCDU. The FMS re-calculated and we proceeded direct to the next fix. During all of this we drifted right of course as we were right over LGC. ATC asked if we were joining the arrival. I am not sure how far right of course we were; but I do not believe we were significantly off course. There was no conflict with other traffic. I am new on the aircraft and my familiarity with FMS operation is still developing. In the future I will wait to make changes if I see I will be close on a fix given the MD88 slow processing speed.
An MD-88 Captain; new to the airplane; had difficulty programming the FMS for a change in their arrival clearance to ATL and a track deviation resulted.