CDU FMC Error

[Igbon]

I just bought IXEG 737 and started doing tutorials to learn the systems.

First by Mike Ray and then the included tutorial.

In both cases the  FMC does not do what is expected.

For example when inputting ZFW and GW and fuel weight and cruise height the EXEC key should light up to allow

data input.

It doesn't.

The other problem involves STAR waypoints in a Mike Ray book.

I shall wait for some response though.

[Litjan]

The EXEC will only light up if you are actually changing an entered AND activated route - even changing the weights will change the route, as a heavier airplane flies faster, makes wider turns, etc. So without a route entered and activated, the EXEC will not light up.

Jan

 

[Igbon]

Thank you for the reply.

The problem is, is that I am following a tutorial where it says that the exec light should be on.

When setting the parameters on the PERF INIT page it should come on to allow that data to be entered.

The tutorial, from IXEG, says so. There is no route information at this stage.

Also, I checked it against other sims and it does light up in the others. (I got different ones because  was disappointed that IXEG wasn't working as it should.

 

Also there is a point in another tutorial, by Mike Ray, who's book was recommended by the sim developers and is specifically for this sim.

This occurs when entering departures in the dep/arr screen. Again, it should be lit when having entered the departure location and runway and SIDS, but no, it only activates after arrivals are entered.

There may be more issues after this as well.

VNAV not coming on maybe.

I am trying to follow instructions specifically for this exact sim and unfortunately it doesn't behave the way it should.

 

The first example is quite simple and it doesn't light up, and it seems as though it should.

 

Thanks Michael

[aculver]

FWIW the Mike Ray book is about the real airplane, not this simulation. Use it to learn how one real pilots thinks as he flies the 737 classic. But don't expect it and the sim to behave identically.

[Igbon]

No, you are incorrect.

I know he does books for real planes.

He also does books for flight sims. One of which was recommended by the seller and was part of a package.

And, specifically, as I said before, for the  IXEG sim.

Called 'Sim Pilots Guide 737-300 IXEG Specifically designed for X-Plane.

That is, a whole book by Mike Ray about the IXEG 737 SIM.

 

My point here is, is that I am following "specific instructions" about this "exact sim" and it does not work as described.

Is it a bug is it due to moving to X-Plane 11.

Did he do it too soon.

Can it be fixed.

I need to know if the program is defective.

 

And, can I ask you if you get the exec light come on when finishing the PERF INIT screen.

 

 

Thanks, Michael.

 

[Igbon]

Also, am I posting this question in the wrong place?

My question is about a possible bug and the answers have seemed to missed the point.

In fact the answers were a bit dismissive and condescending and completely failed to address my issue.

I already bought the PMDG sim after I couldn't get this working "as it should". If it fails in this regard I can't be sure it is behaving properly in any other way.

I like the graphics of this one better so I hope I get a good answer to go on with it.

I was told to come here for support if I had issues.

 

Thanks again Michael.

[tkyler]

Hi Michael, thanks for purchasing.  

I did the programming for the FMC and will try and answer your questions.  Mike Ray's book was a effort separate from the IXEG development, so I can only surmise here as I have not gone through it myself fully.  Mike's book contains some good info that specifically relates to the particulars of X-Plane and our simulation and so the "IXEG" part of that title has some validity; but in doing so, also gives the impression that it should coincide with our simulation behavior 100%, so I understand your perspective.

Could you please provide the title of the tutorials, any version numbers if applicable... and the page numbers that you are following and I will take a look and see.

I can say that the minimum requirements to get the EXEC light to light up in our sim is the presence of at least one waypoint....and then hitting the ACTIVATE button from the LEGS or RTE page.  Once the ACTIVATE button has been pressed and the EXEC button pressed, then the route with be 'EXECUTED' (and the route on the EFIS will be shown in magenta).  Any change to the route or weights after that point will cause the EXEC light to illuminate.   In reality, there are many versions of software that the FMC uses and it may be that one version will illuminate the EXEC light once weight data is entered while another does not....I couldn't say without looking at the software version history of the real FMC, which I don't have handy.  IXEG doesn't claim to implement any specific version.

The FMC does have some unimplemented features (holds for example) and shortcomings with regards to the VNAV calculations, moreso when edits are made while in-the-air, but is robust in quite a few areas.   We support two data sets, Navigraph and Aerosoft, and some aspects of the Navigraph data encodings are slightly different and have caused me difficulties in trying to support them both, particularly with STARs and SIDS that have runway transitions.  If you have runways entered before entering SID/STARs ,then the behavior tends to be a bit more stable.    Now I have been in contact with Navigraph as recently as this past weekend and they are working to alter the data so that it contains more resolution with regards to runway transitions.  I believe this will allow me to stabilize the routes and editing appreciably.

The plan is to implement the the new XP11 ARINC 424 formats for FMC data, which will give the most accurate routing IMO.  I have begun writing code to work with this data, but it is not a fast process and I certainly can't give an estimate as to when it would be deployed.   Unfortunately, I have been side-tracked for the past 3 years in a rather busy endeavor, but am happy to report that I am working on it again and very much looking into enhancing the IXEG FMC.

-Tom Kyler

Edited March 12, 2019 by tkyler

[Vespa]

Tom!...happy to see you around here...welcome back.

[marpilot]

Come on guys, lets fly

[Igbon]

Hi Tom, thanks for the reply, it was just the info I  was looking for.

I have no experience flying the big jets by properly using the tools such as the FMC and MCP.

But I  have been playing with sims for a long time, just flying around. MS FSX of course and DCS world for the military stuff. I love their A 10 Warthog.

So, I don't really know anything about Navigraph or Aerosoft and the kind of data you refer to.

Now I really like the look and feel of X Plane and IXEG and I thought I would give 'real' airline type flying a try.

I did assume that the Mike Ray book was kind of an official guide done in conjunction, so thanks for clearing that up.

I didn't realize that there could be so many variations on how the FMC could operate so I was worried that there was a bug or it just wasn't working as described, which meant I could be certain that anything else  was working properly either or that I had done the  right amount of the right things to get a flight going.

As I said, I was a complete newbie in regard to SID's and STARS and couldn't to get any thing set up properly.

Although I do have a better understanding now.

I have X Plane 11 with IXEG 737 version 1.21. 

 

The tutorial I mentioned is in the IXEG  Documentation folder in the X Plane/Aircraft folder.

It is called 'Tutorial Flight 1 - Basic FMS and navigation',  page 8

It says that, after entering the GWS  figures along with the fuel weight and   crz altitude in the PERF INIT page,

" Press the EXECute key (lit) to confirm your entry"

 

It says this before referring to any other page in the FMC.

As I said, my one does not have the EXEC key  lit at this point.                              

 

After seeing the info you provided I have been playing around with the stuff Mike Ray was talking about and while it doesn't follow exactly the way he describes it, it does work if I do what you said about finding ACTIVATE on the LEGS or  RTE page.

 

As I said I was a complete newbie in all this so even a slight hiccup stymied me.

But, I am getting the hang of it now, especially now that I know that there isn't really a fundamental problem so thanks very much for the help.

 

Also, you have done a great job on this sim, it looks great and feels great and now that I am not so frustrated I am starting  to have fun learning these different ways to fly.

I look forward to learning more about  Navigraph and Aerosoft and STARS and SIDS and all that navigation stuff too.

 

So, I would be interested in your opinion on the accuracy of the tutorial I mentioned from IXEG itself but don't worry about the Mike Ray stuff, I think I can make it work with the info you gave here.

Thanks again,  Michael.

[tkyler]

Hi Michael,

Well I have a confession.  I am more like you than you know.  I too got interested in "airliner" type flying a while back and even though I'm programming it, I haven't fully mastered it, I still have a lot to learn. What I have learned though during my research of FMC / CDU operation,  is:

1) you'd be surprised how many people aren't exactly sure how things work when recalling it from memory and

2) there are indeed small deltas to how the FMC operates between software version and some folks never quite get to see the alternative operation and so get quite dogmatic on how its supposed to work, when in reality, there are variations.

I have two very comprehensive FMC manuals and they simply do not give the 'minimum criteria' for the EXEC lit to be lit....at least not that I have been able to find.   All examples given in these references have you to press the EXEC key while some waypoints are loaded.  So...that being said, I think you have indeed found a bug in the tutorial document.   I can only guess that we might have taken a screenshot of the PERF INIT page while some waypoints were loaded and we just didn't catch it.

Philosophically,  I see no reason the EXEC light couldn't light up after entering some PERF INIT data without a route (at least 1 waypoint), after all, its just a way to tell the FMC "do some calculations now"....and with only PERF INIT data entered,  any calculations without the route would be minimal....there are a few, but nothing that alters the flight path of the aircraft.   One of my (quite official) FMC texts uses the phraseology, 

Quote

The EXEC key is used to accept entries made to the flight plan, guidance mode, or the navigation data base

It could be argued that PERF DATA without a waypoint cannot be a flight, and therefore is not a flight plan....nor is PERF DATA only a guideance mode or part of the navigation database.  I think this was the logic I used when programming it originally.   If you have at least one waypoint (from the navigation database), then you have a minimal flight and that's when you get the EXEC light (after ACTIVATION).

More confusing to me still is the term ACTIVATE. For example, below is some text from my rather official FMC manual I have.

 

Quote

When data entries have been activated (by pressing the lighted EXEC key), the page status title ACT appears in front of the page title.

 

The above says that entries have been activated by pressing the lighted EXEC key; however, we all know that before hitting EXEC for the first time, there are the words ACTIVATE on LSK 6R...which must be pressed before EXEC.  So.... if, according the manufacturers own manual,  'activated' results from pressing the lighted EXEC key, what the heck are we activating when we press ACTIVATE?   I tell ya,  communication is a finicky thing!

Anyhow,  thanks for catching that, we'll make the appropriate updates and I hope you don't get too discouraged.  Learning an airliner and the ins and outs is daunting and I myself have a long way to go, usually I only undestand one thing at a time and right now, its holds!

Thx again,

TomK 

Edited March 14, 2019 by tkyler

[CYUL900]

Interesting insight Tom and great to hear you are working on holds in FMC.

John

[Igbon]

Hi Tom, no I won't get discouraged now that I know the reasons and reasonings behind what is going on thanks to your explanations.

Describing things, complex things, without ambiguity can be surprisingly difficult. See how legal documents and stuff go on and on.

Now I can look forward to learning how these things do work, variations and all.

I have been doing a few flights that I have had to adjust the route through the legs screen, in a way slightly different to that being described and am now starting to see how things work a nd can make the required adjustments.

Having said that I have completely failed to capture the localiser to do a CAT III landing despite thinking all was OK, but I will work it out.

It is surprisingly good fun flying the plane using the 'systems'  rather than having all ones attention taken by trying to fly (badly) manually. We can pop out for external views and watch it all happening in a nice smooth way and then look around at all the instruments doing their instrumenty things and such.

 

I am having another possible 'bug' situation, where the whole sim locks up  and becomes very jerky, with a movement every second or so. It isn't a frame rate issue but I shall investigate more before pursuing it here. It doesn't happen often.

 

Thanks again,   Michael.

 

 

[Litjan]

2 hours ago, Igbon said:

Hi Tom, no I won't get discouraged now that I know the reasons and reasonings behind what is going on thanks to your explanations.

Describing things, complex things, without ambiguity can be surprisingly difficult. See how legal documents and stuff go on and on.

Now I can look forward to learning how these things do work, variations and all.

I have been doing a few flights that I have had to adjust the route through the legs screen, in a way slightly different to that being described and am now starting to see how things work a nd can make the required adjustments.

Having said that I have completely failed to capture the localiser to do a CAT III landing despite thinking all was OK, but I will work it out.

It is surprisingly good fun flying the plane using the 'systems'  rather than having all ones attention taken by trying to fly (badly) manually. We can pop out for external views and watch it all happening in a nice smooth way and then look around at all the instruments doing their instrumenty things and such.

 

I am having another possible 'bug' situation, where the whole sim locks up  and becomes very jerky, with a movement every second or so. It isn't a frame rate issue but I shall investigate more before pursuing it here. It doesn't happen often.

 

Thanks again,   Michael.

 

 

Michael, if the "jerky" situation happens when you MOD the route - you need to create an exemption to Windows Defender (live scan) excluding the whole X-Plane folder. It interferes with accessing the database (trying to real-time-read all data going in and out) and this tanks down the framerate.

Cheers, Jan

 

[Igbon]

Thanks Jan, that will be it. It did happen while  modifying something while flying.

The jerkiness goes away as soon as the exec key  is pressed.

I will do the defender thing now.

Michael.

[Igbon]

Hi again, well, I said I wasn't going to get discouraged, but, I am.

It seems that every step in following tutorials or recommend books results in some irregularity that takes time to work out.

Then if something starts going well the sim will freeze and collapse.

The main thing though is that the documentation doesn't reflect the actual product. 

The latest thing is being advised, in IXEG tutorial number three to use some addon on scenery so  that things look better.

 

No worries, and it's even free, but after going to the trouble of registering and downloading and unpacking and installing, does it work?

No, it does not. 

"the following scenery has a problem and will not be loaded"

So I get a message about "learn more" where I get to examine a log file to analyse the potential faults.

Just what I wanted after spending hours trying to follow the previous tutorial only to have the whole thing lock up halfway through, just before the part I actually wanted to study, and crashed.

I have spent so many hours trying to make sense of these little 'errors' .

It seems that every single simple step requires hours of fault finding.

Perhaps it is a good product for experienced users who understand these things and can just adjust, but I am not such and am getting frustrated.

 

Sorry for whinging but when one gets told to, so to speak, RTFM, and the manual is dodgy, there you go.

[tkyler]

I feel ya.....you just hit on one of my biggest pet-peeves.  That's why my posts tend to be a bit lengthy....a readers mind forms all sorts of questions as it peruses sentences and a lot of folks who write instructions don't address those derived internal questions, leaving more questions to the end user and the lost time to "experiment and test" to get those answers and the ensuing frustration.  That was the impetus behind my statement above that communication is a finicky thing....and good comms quite rare IMO.   

Regarding all the other little things that you are trying to learn with frustration....all I can say is that I know how you feel.  While some areas of learning go easy, still many many do not and for myself at least, I have to chalk this stuff up to the pains of 'learning process'. 

So...regarding the scenery, did you ever get it going?  If not, then post the X-Plane log file (should be in the root X-Plane folder) and there are several experienced folks here who might be able to help out. 

-TomK

[Igbon]

Hi Tom, yeah, thanks for the reply, a rather philosophical reply, which is good.

I will keep trying and suffering the learning pains.

I haven't got the scenery to work yet but am still looking into it.

I do like all the tech stuff but when it interferes with that which I am trying to learn at the time it is frustrating.

Especially when it is a completely new topic, like scenery programming.

I did look at the Log file but it is a bit confusing for me. It says it is looking for an art asset that doesn't exist and I can't find it in the folder, or any hint of where it could be.

Here it is the file though.

I am still having fun flying though, having just discovered that if one does not do the right actions in icing conditions, you will crash.

Boom.

Thanks again,  Michael.

Log.txt

[Igbon]

I have just come across a thing called OpenSceneryX and am installing it now.

This may fix the problem.

The main problem is that the original scenery instructions didn't bother to mention this necessity.

But, live and learn.

Yep, it did fix the problem. That was where it was looking for files, pity I already decided to get a paid version.

Later, Michael

[Igbon]

Hi guy' again, I don't know if this is the right place to put this query but I am using IXEG all the time.

I keep failing to get the auto land to work.

I would like to keep trying from a reasonable approach distance rather than starting a whole new flight.

The manuals say that I ought to be able to save a flight in a particular situation, precisely for this kind of scenario, but,

while the save function does save 'some' of the parameters, many are missing. 

The FMC does not contain all the data it had at the save point.

LEGS will be gone and various other bits too. And the plane will be in a different configuration.

Is this normal, is it an X-Plane issue?

It is not a very useful feature if this is the best it can do.

Have tried several times.

Any help appreciated.

 

Michael.

[Litjan]

Hi Michael,

saving a situation with X-Plane will NOT work - for the reasons you found out yourself, many parameters don´t get saved.

But it is possible to practice this (and other things) like this:

1.) Put the plane on the runway you want to land on.

2.) Tune the ILS freq and set the ILS course on both NAV radios and set autopilot altitude to 3000.

3.) Find out the Vref for the current weight (use placards above window) and set the plastic speed bug (white) on airspeed indicator.

4.) Pause the simulator

5.) Open the map (m key), change the display to IFR map (so you can see the ILS and waypoints).

6.) click the airplane, then change the altitude to 3000 feet and change the airspeed to 250 and the pitch to 3 degrees.

7.) drag the airplane to a spot about 20 NM from the runway

8.) close the map, unpause the simulator

9.) Now quickly: Turn on autopilot A, turn on autothrottle, dial in speed of 250 and click FL CHG.

10.) Raise the landing gear, click B to toggle parking brake off

11.) Now you can fly to intercept the ILS as usual...

Jan

[Igbon]

Thanks Jan I shall try that now.

I don't get the VREF's on the placard. Weights range from 65-35 TONN which bare no relationship to anything I know about.

And what is FL CHG. Is it  the same as LVL CHG.

I almost got down using VOR LOC and APP but speed was wrong and I bounced, a lot.

Still bouncing even though speed 153.

Edited March 20, 2019 by Igbon

[Igbon]

I have tried what you said, setting 250 and LVL change and flew straight into the ground.

Also, how do I activate a waypoint along the route so I can start just before it and start flying the Magenta Line.

Again, the book says I should be able to double select it so that it becomes the active way point.

MENLO coming into KSFO for example, but that doesn't seem to work, the plane wants to go back to the beginning.
 

I'll try deleting the earlier ones.

Also, what info does need to be in the FMC for your method to work?

I have been trying for days now and have not managed to complete one single flight in any of the books or tutorials.

There is always something.

Oh well, one more time.

Then, back to yank and bank maybe.

 

Nope, straight into the ground after flipping around every where.

 

Also, often when it resets, which is often, it starts with half the displays missing.

I have to load another aircraft and then reload this one. 

 

I am going to try MSFS to see if it is just me being too stupid to understand books and tutorials and other instructions, or not.

As I have said it is just one error after another.

 

Thanks, Michael.

Edited March 20, 2019 by Igbon

[Litjan]

Hi Michael,

I will concede that the tutorials are based on version 1.0 of the aircraft, we are at 1.2. Yet not THAT much has changed.

I know you think there is a lot of stuff wrong with this aircraft, but let me tell you that I flew the real 737 classic for 10 years and I feel totally at home in our IXEG 1.2 and it pretty much (except for some stuff in the FMS like holds and VNAV descents) works EXACTLY like it did in the real aircraft I flew.

It hurts me to say that - but flying an airliner (especially alone) is not for everyone. You need to be a proficient pilot to start with, any airliner is not a student aircraft.

We have thousands of customers that fly the plane just fine - solely based on our tutorials and our training videos. If you crash and burn a lot or fail to get the aircraft to do what you want it to do, chances are that you don´t know how to do that. Yet I don´t think it is our job or comes with the product that we need to teach you how to fly an airliner.

Cheers, Jan

 

[TonyVier]

8 hours ago, Igbon said:

I have tried what you said, setting 250 and LVL change and flew straight into the ground.

 

250ft or 25000ft (aka FL250)

??

Give me your route, Ill record it, how I would fly it.

Edited March 20, 2019 by TonyVier