CRJ-200 1.4.1 XP10 First flight

[Muskoka]

Hi guys,

Well, first off, thanks for this very nice aircraft, you've done a great job. The download went without a problem, ran the installer for both XP9.7 and XPX, it did its thing, un-install / re-install, all went well.

Now, I haven't tried it in XP9, so nothing to report there yet. When I started XPX, it loaded the last aircraft used, C172, I then selected the CRJ and it almost immediately crashed to desktop. Thought to myself, oh boy, here we go. Started up again, loaded the CRJ, and all was fine, who knows.

Everything so far appears to work fine. Did my usual one hour flight from CYXU-CYOW, had to input the flight plan with departing runway, having the keyboard for input is real nice, thank you. After inputting the temperature on the Perf Page, noticed the different Perf limits, nice. The flight went without any major problems, I did notice a couple of things though.

The distance to destination on the MFD didn't show the correct distance (see screenshot). Don't know if this is a CRJ or XPX thing. You'll see in the screen shot that the MFD states 58NM to CYOW, CYOW is inside of the 40NM range ring. It's not 33NM from Visol to CYOW, it's 10'ish NM. Also, the Chronometer / Date display doesn't show anything, it's blank. I cycled the function selector, nothing.

Other than those very minor snags, it worked fantastic. Thank you.

Glen

P.S. Will try in XP 9.7, see if the little snags are there as well.

Edit: Just started up XPX again to see what would happen. The Chronometer / Date is showing just fine. It seems anytime I switch screen resoloutions, or go from full screen to not full screen things act up. Probably a ATI driver issue, using the latest. Maybe time to try Nvidia. Another thing, when the sim first loads the CRJ, as soon as I move the hat switch on my Saitek yoke, the plane shuts down (the engines). The buttons are only set to view, nothing else. As soon and I reload the aircraft from the menu, it works fine. It's just after initial load, kinda wierd, but I know the workaround.

Edit2: Just tried XP9, crashed as soon as I loaded the CRJ, restarted, all was fine. Chronometer is working ok, doesn't crash when I use the hat switch on initial load from another aircraft at startup. I copied the same flight plan I used in XPX over to "C:\Users\Glen\Desktop\X-Plane 9\Aircraft\X-Aviation\CRJ-200\plugins\CRJAvionics\routes" from that same location in XPX, and the waypoints do not show, dept / dest, that's it. Don't know if it's intended to be this way or not. Didn't have a problem copying flight plans before.

Edit3: Had to toggle out of full screen to do something, toggled back to fullscreen and the Chronometer was blank.

Edit4: The FMS logic doesn't seem to work as well in XP 9.7 as it does in XPX. In the screenshots you can see I'm in "FMS CLB 250" mode, yet with the predetermined Perf rating of 85.7 based on temperature I was pushing 300knots, way too fast for below 10,000ft. I started to decrease the Perf, and you can see at Perf 70.0 I'm still going TAS 273, GS 280, and the VS way going back and forth between -200 to say +600, and no higher. The winds were 151 at 12, should not have affected speed at all, perhaps just slightly. This was the same weather / winds as my first flight in XPX, and the airplane behaved totally different. Perhaps something to look at?

Edited January 23, 2012 by Muskoka

[philipp]

The distance to destination on the MFD didn't show the correct distance (see screenshot).

The distances are of course different, because the MFD is showing the accumulated distances, while the LEGS page shows the distance point-to-point. Also, the total distance to the final destination is calculated including any arrival procedure - I see a waypoint behind CYOL in your MFD, does this belong to the approach? Note that what is displayed as the CYOL waypoint is actually the coordinates of the treshhold of the runway you set for approach.

Edit: Just started up XPX again to see what would happen. The Chronometer / Date is showing just fine. It seems anytime I switch screen resoloutions, or go from full screen to not full screen things act up. Probably a ATI driver issue, using the latest. Maybe time to try Nvidia.

This indeed sounds like a driver problem - never saw anything like this on any of my three PCs or my Mac - but all of them have nVidia, no exeption.

Another thing, when the sim first loads the CRJ, as soon as I move the hat switch on my Saitek yoke, the plane shuts down (the engines). The buttons are only set to view, nothing else. As soon and I reload the aircraft from the menu, it works fine. It's just after initial load, kinda wierd, but I know the workaround.

Now this is hilarious... Haha. I use the Saitek yoke myself. Can you tell me what exactly did you program the hat switch to do so I can try this myself - though I have not the faintest idea what could cause this.

I copied the same flight plan I used in XPX over to "C:\Users\Glen\Desktop\X-Plane 9\Aircraft\X-Aviation\CRJ-200\plugins\CRJAvionics\routes" from that same location in XPX, and the waypoints do not show, dept / dest, that's it. Don't know if it's intended to be this way or not. Didn't have a problem copying flight plans before.

Note that flight plan saving/loading works on the ACT FPLN. If you edited your flightplan and where in MOD FLPN mode and didn't EXECute the modifications, the saved flightplan will reflect the state of the last ACT FPLN, not the MOD FPLN. Summary: EXEC all changes before saving.

Edit3: Had to toggle out of full screen to do something, toggled back to fullscreen and the Chronometer was blank.

Smells ever more of a openGL driver issue.

In the screenshots you can see I'm in "FMS CLB 250" mode, yet with the predetermined Perf rating of 85.7 based on temperature I was pushing 300knots, way too fast for below 10,000ft. I started to decrease the Perf, and you can see at Perf 70.0 I'm still going TAS 273, GS 280, and the VS way going back and forth between -200 to say +600, and no higher.

The temp rating does not influence the autopilot speed at all - If the autopilot is in CLB250 mode, it will hold 250 knots, even when you are pushing ridiculous N1, just you will be making a higher climb rate. The fact you are describing the VS between -200 and +600 makes me think the autopilot was not in the mode you thought it was - normal climb rate below 10.000 with full CLB power according to the temp is going to be well over 3000fpm, depending on weight, of course decreasing with altitude.

Perhaps the autopilot was out of trim? What was the trim indicator showing? Did you center the flight controls (roughly) before activating the AP?

Philipp

[Muskoka]

The distances are of course different, because the MFD is showing the accumulated distances, while the LEGS page shows the distance point-to-point. Also, the total distance to the final destination is calculated including any arrival procedure - I see a waypoint behind CYOL in your MFD, does this belong to the approach? Note that what is displayed as the CYOL waypoint is actually the coordinates of the treshhold of the runway you set for approach.

CYOW is just another waypoint along the route. It also happens to be the destination. The MFD say there is still 58NM to go to CYOW, just like it says there is 22NM to go to ASHTN and 25NM to go to VISOL, which is correct, 58NM left to go to CYOW is not correct. It's not that difficult, the range ring is 40NM, CYOW is inside the 40NM range ring, yet the MFD says there is still 58NM to go to CYOW. After CYOW you see the Missed Approach Waypoints, they are beyond CYOW, the destination, and shouldn't be included in a calculated distance to destination. What if I included a waypoint that was 1000NM past the destination. Would it be correct for the MFD to say I had 1075NM to go, even though that waypoint is past the destination. How else do you calculate your TOD, if you don't know the proper distance to the destination. I don't know if it's currently including the Missed Approach Waypoints, but if it is , it's shouldn't. Hope that's clear now.

This indeed sounds like a driver problem - never saw anything like this on any of my three PCs or my Mac - but all of them have nVidia, no exeption.

Agreed, maybe time to switch.

Now this is hilarious... Haha. I use the Saitek yoke myself. Can you tell me what exactly did you program the hat switch to do so I can try this myself - though I have not the faintest idea what could cause this.

This only happens in XPX, never see it in XP 9.7.

Note that flight plan saving/loading works on the ACT FPLN. If you edited your flightplan and where in MOD FLPN mode and didn't EXECute the modifications, the saved flightplan will reflect the state of the last ACT FPLN, not the MOD FPLN. Summary: EXEC all changes before saving.

In the previous version, I had a saved flight plan for the CRJ in XP 9.7, I copied that saved flight plan over to XPX, loaded it in the CRJ and it worked. Now it doesn't. Your respone doesn't address the question (?). The flights plans are either interchangable between XP9.7 and XPX, or there not, they used to be. In other words I could input a good flight plan in XPX, save it, and then copy it to the proper location in XP 9.7, load it in the FMS, and it worked fine, now they don't.

Smells ever more of a openGL driver issue.

Agreed, another ATI - XPX problem.

The temp rating does not influence the autopilot speed at all - If the autopilot is in CLB250 mode, it will hold 250 knots, even when you are pushing ridiculous N1, just you will be making a higher climb rate. The fact you are describing the VS between -200 and +600 makes me think the autopilot was not in the mode you thought it was - normal climb rate below 10.000 with full CLB power according to the temp is going to be well over 3000fpm, depending on weight, of course decreasing with altitude.

Perhaps the autopilot was out of trim? What was the trim indicator showing? Did you center the flight controls (roughly) before activating the AP?

No, but the temp does affect the Perf rating. If I don't put a temperature in, you get nothing, agreed. So, in XP 9.7, and to say again, this didn't happen in XPX, the Perf rating of 85.7 with a CLB of 250, was producing speeds pushing 300knots. This didn't happen in XPX, and it didn't happen in the previous version in XP9.7, but it does now. As it is now, it does not hold 250 knots, it used to. And when I tried to lower the Perf rating to 70, the speed did decrease, but so did the Vertical Speed to a very low number. In the previous version, in XP 9.7 it would climb out nice at around 2000ft / min, at 250knots (up to 10,000ft at which time I would increase the Perf rating and it would respond as expected), now it doesn't. The Vertical Speed is fine, the TAS and GS are not. That's why I included the actual weather so you would see it had little to no influence. It's has to be in the new code, because it worked fine before. And, to say one more time, it only so far has happened in XP 9.7.

Philipp, I've been flying long enough to give you accurate information, and I do know how it used to handle. I've changed nothing on my end, other than the updated version of the aircraft software. I haven't changed how I fly today from yesterday, still do things the same. The only thing that has changed is the software. I'm only trying to help and make you aware of some issues that still are present. Unfortunatly, these issues are different between XP 9.7 and XPX.

Glen

Edited January 23, 2012 by Muskoka

[Cameron]

Hi, Glen,

A small patch is coming out shortly that may solve your issues. Please keep an eye on your email inbox.

Best,

Cameron

[Muskoka]

Will do Cameron, thank you.

Glen