Observations Saab 340 1.5.

[Steve Simpson]

Hi guys

This is by no way a criticism of your excellent product but some observations following a full flight this morning from Inverness to Edinburgh.

1. Ground roll thrust not consistent. Sometimes a lot required sometimes none.

2. Rate of roll when on hdg mode seems way excessive. Can this be reduced to 30 degrees as it's nearer 45.

3. On nearing altitude on climb mode the aircraft pitches wildly up and down while trying to capture the altitude.

4. Gpws anounciations on finals when fully configured.

5. Erratic pitch and roll when hand flying. I think this is an xplane issue as I feel the controls should be able to be manipulated more like fsuipc in p3d. Also applies to brakes. Get the feeling either on or off.

6. Can there be an option for mb rather than inches.

7. Is there a way to adjust the heading bugs without popping out another window as it doesn't make for a tidy cockpit.

8. On trimmed flight manually plane appears to turn to the left. How can this be adjusted.

9. Seems to be an issue with xenviro.

Hope this provides some useful feedback.  The aircraft in general is one of my favourites.

Cheers

S

[Vantskruv]

10. No mouse-drag for the altitude preselector.

[JGregory]

6 hours ago, Steve Simpson said:

2. Rate of roll when on hdg mode seems way excessive. Can this be reduced to 30 degrees as it's nearer 45.

Just to clarify... you mean the "degrees" of roll, not the "rate", right?

 

6 hours ago, Steve Simpson said:

3. On nearing altitude on climb mode the aircraft pitches wildly up and down while trying to capture the altitude.

Most likely you are flying too fast.

 

6 hours ago, Steve Simpson said:

4. Gpws anounciations on finals when fully configured.

Being looked into.  I have asked for log files from you (and others).

 

6 hours ago, Steve Simpson said:

5. Erratic pitch and roll when hand flying. I think this is an xplane issue as I feel the controls should be able to be manipulated more like fsuipc in p3d. Also applies to brakes. Get the feeling either on or off.

Again, most likely from flying too fast.  What was your airspeed?

 

6 hours ago, Steve Simpson said:

6. Can there be an option for mb rather than inches.

As in the real aircraft, this option is available on the copilot altimeter.

 

6 hours ago, Steve Simpson said:

7. Is there a way to adjust the heading bugs without popping out another window as it doesn't make for a tidy cockpit.

Please clarify.  You can use the dial on the center pedestal to adjust the heading.

 

6 hours ago, Steve Simpson said:

9. Seems to be an issue with xenviro.

This could be X-Enviro's issue and have nothing to do with Gizmo or the Saab.  

 

6 hours ago, Vantskruv said:

10. No mouse-drag for the altitude preselector.

Works fine for me.

[Hreygro]

I agree with observations # 2, 4, 5 :

- bank angle is much too wide when turning on AP (should be 30° max)

- GPWS alerts on landing, when fully configured

- pitch an roll too sensible when handflying at any airspeed (much more than XP10 version)

Thanks

[Goran_M]

27 minutes ago, Hreygro said:

I agree with observations # 2, 4, 5 :

- bank angle is much too wide when turning on AP (should be 30° max)

- GPWS alerts on landing, when fully configured

- pitch an roll too sensible when handflying at any airspeed (much more than XP10 version)

Thanks

Please don't misinterpret what I am about to say as some kind of attack or challenge, but what makes you say the bank angle, under autopilot, should be 30° max?  Is that a generalized statement, or is it based on actual Saab flying time?

[Hreygro]

No Saab flying time : only real world flying as a private pilot since 1995... and an airliner passenger since a much longer time !

30° is the comfort maximum value, commonly adopted for passenger transportation in "civilized" companies : try to bank harder and you'll begin to hear some yells behind the door

 

[Goran_M]

I will double check with the Saab pilot that helped us out, and take it from there.  Fair enough?

 

[nomdeplume]

The autopilot roll behaviour does seem a bit aggressive and uncomfortable for the passengers, but perhaps the Saab is normally flown by hand for turns rather than on AP?

Another thing I've noticed is that course corrections are very aggressive. This can most easily be demonstrated in HDG hold mode which small changes to the heading; the aircraft will roll quite a bit more than seems necessary in order to align on the new course. So perhaps you could also check with the pilot if the autopilot is really that excitable?

One interesting thing I found is that just switching the nav system results in a series of rolls. As in:

• Set both NAV radios to the same VOR.
• Get established on an inbound or outbound radial using the NAV AP mode.
• Make sure both CRS1 and CRS2 are set the same.
• Switch to the right-side nav (or vice versa).

My expectation:

• Minimal (if any) change in aircraft roll attitude, since it's still following the same course.

Actual result:

• Fairly steep roll right, followed by another roll to the left to re-establish on the radial.

I don't know if X-Plane can/does model the precise location of the radios within the aircraft and these rolls are due to the aircraft finding itself slightly off the ideal course, or if there's something else going on with switching autopilot control source, but either way this strikes me as "unexpected behaviour".

Another little thing - if you use the HDG Slave button to set the AP heading to the current heading it works as expected, but the previous seems to be retained by the heading selector dial on the center pedestal so upon the next adjustment it'll start from the previous position rather than the current position. This also results in some unexpected and confusing behaviour. I assume the heading is set based on the animation value of the dial or something? In that case, maybe syncing the dial when the heading slave is used would be a viable workaround.

I think something similar occurs when using the OBS dial to change CRS1, as I've seen that jump around in weird ways though I haven't fully sussed out exactly what triggers it.

[JGregory]

Autopilot behavior has been adjusted.  This should resolve the aggressive turn rate. We have also added bank limit so that should help as well.  

As far as the behavior when switching from NAV2 to NAV1 and vice-versa, I believe the autopilot fixes should take care of this.  Although, please note, X-Plane stores heading and course values as floats.  That means that the course for NAV1 and NAV2 will most likely not be the same (by a maximum of 0.99 degrees, more likely 0.5 or less), therefore there will be some change when switching between the two radio sources.

The HDG Slave and Heading Dial sync has been fixed. 

The CRS1 dial and VOR dial sync issue has been fixed as well. 

Update to be released soon®.

Edited March 20, 2018 by JGregory

[Lorenzo.D]

I have an observation,i tink that the gpu in Real operation can't stay under the wing becouse it can explode or fire...maybe near the wing but not under.

Not fondamental. I love this plane.

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[nomdeplume]

15 hours ago, JGregory said:

Autopilot behavior has been adjusted.
The HDG Slave and Heading Dial sync has been fixed.
The CRS1 dial and VOR dial sync issue has been fixed as well.

Excellent news, thanks very much!

Found another minor thing - somehow my altitude selector got stuck on xxx50 ft (49.183228 ft to be precise) and I can't fix it back to displaying even 100 foot increments, so it looks a bit awkward. No idea what I did to achieve this state, it's been fine for my first flew flights with the update, and I can't be sure exactly when it 'broke'.

Maybe if it could be forced to an even 100 feet at startup that would fix it, or alternatively make the lower bound clamp it to 100 feet so you can just roll it all the way down to 'reset' it?

On further investigation it looks like it's a standard X-Plane dataref that may be persisted, so maybe it was another aircraft that messed it up? I loaded the MU-2 and it reset the selector to 5,000 feet and when I switched back to the Saab it's fine. So it can be fixed easily enough but it might be worthwhile making sure the value when the aircraft is loaded is "valid".

 

 

[Goran_M]

Fixed.

[Steve Simpson]

When can we expect an interim release. Ta

[Cameron]

4 hours ago, Steve Simpson said:

When can we expect an interim release. Ta

When it's ready.

[Granite]

Thanks for the update on this aircraft.

Regarding the aggressive roll rate on AP (which I agree is way too aggressive) I also see vertical fluctuations as well. In the turn the aircraft will drop 100FT or so then when it corrects it will oscillate a few times at 1000fpm up or down to recapture altitude as selected. Again this is excessive vertical behaviour. When turning the AP should make allowance for the turn and maintain altitude.

I will check this in 1.5.1 and report back.

[Nexter]

Hi everyone ! 

So, I tested the new update with a friend with smartcopilot fully up to date I mean the smartcopilot for Saab 340 1.5 and we had some problems..

After the startup sequence my friend lost the engines and elec power for unknown reason...but not for me..

We tried twice and each time he lost engines...I tried alone I took off and about 20 minutes later same problem loss of engines power and elec gen..

We have the same textures same plane same sceneries etc...any ideas ?? Maybe the smartcopi cfg file ? Or is someone had the same pb ?

[Goran_M]

GizmoLog.txt and Log.txt please.

[birdy.dma]

1 hour ago, Nexter said:

Hi everyone ! 

So, I tested the new update with a friend with smartcopilot fully up to date I mean the smartcopilot for Saab 340 1.5 and we had some problems..

After the startup sequence my friend lost the engines and elec power for unknown reason...but not for me..

We tried twice and each time he lost engines...I tried alone I took off and about 20 minutes later same problem loss of engines power and elec gen..

We have the same textures same plane same sceneries etc...any ideas ?? Maybe the smartcopi cfg file ? Or is someone had the same pb ?

Weird. Already reported by a couple of pilots ( Major96 )

I will try to catch the bug again. Difficult as i can't reproduce it.

PS: please about smartco post in the right thread.

[birdy.dma]

19 minutes ago, Goran_M said:

GizmoLog.txt and Log.txt please.

Hi Nexter, of course, Goran_M is right. Post the logs of both pilots.

[Lorenzo.D]

On the checklist there is nothing for the inverter.

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