Dump flaps

[jdogg1012]

Hello,

 

I'm a new user to both X-plane and the Jetstream 32. First of all, I'd like to say thanks for making such a great aircraft, that's both fun to fly by hand and has great systems modeling.

 

I'm writing to ask a question about the "dump flaps" setting. For some reason, when I land, the flaps always seem to stay at 35 degrees and never go to the "dump" setting (at least not according to the flap position indicator). At first I thought this was due to me landing too roughly, but tonight I had a gentler landing and the flaps still didn't go to the dump position.

 

From my understanding of the manual (which was a great help by the way, I love it when a plane comes with a detailed manual and procedures), dump flaps will come out in this situation:

 

1. Nose wheel on the ground

2. Throttles below flight idle

3. Flaps selector set to 35.

 

All three of these were true for me. The nose wheel was on the ground, the thottles were in reverse position, and I set the flaps to 35 on final approach. I searched this forum and didn't see any other posts about dump flaps. Am I doing something wrong?

 

Thanks for the help,

Jesse

[Japo32]

Hello and thanks for the support buying the plane.

 

Well.. this is the first thread I hear as you say... Seems that you make all correctly.. maybe the throttle (your joystick) is not calibrated correctly and it has a non iddle input. Maybe you saw the reply and it won't affect the dump effect.

To test it just place the plane with engines running set flaps to 35º (full down lever) and go to position menu. raise the plane 10 or 20 feet and a little speed (something like 100knots) let it fall from outside and take a look. Below 40 knots it will turn back to 35º from dump.

I don't see any problem right now.. is your plugin working correctly? does it start from cold and dark without problem?

[jdogg1012]

Below 40 knots it will turn back to 35º from dump.

 

That was it. Every time I checked to see if the flaps were at dump setting, the airspeed was already below 40 knots. With this in mind, I just checked, and it's working fine. Thanks!

 

One other minor question. Under what circumstances does the "beta" warning light come on?  I experimented with different throttle settings, both in normal and manipulator mode, and while I could get the reverse warning light to come on, I could never get the beta light to come on. This was true even when I moved the throttles below flight idle. Does it only turn on if you go into beta mode in flight?

[Intrance]

One other minor question. Under what circumstances does the "beta" warning light come on?  I experimented with different throttle settings, both in normal and manipulator mode, and while I could get the reverse warning light to come on, I could never get the beta light to come on. This was true even when I moved the throttles below flight idle. Does it only turn on if you go into beta mode in flight?

 

No, they should go on as soon as you have the throttles in a position below the flight idle gate. Does not matter if it's in flight or on the ground.

[jdogg1012]

No, they should go on as soon as you have the throttles in a position below the flight idle gate. Does not matter if it's in flight or on the ground.

 

Strange, that doesn't happen for me. The "beta" lights only go on when I move the prop condition lever all the way down. Maybe the range of my throttle axis isn't mapped correctly; I'll have to check my joystick settings.

[Japo32]

I defined beta range in plane maker in this plane when your joystick is below a 0.02 ratio of a total of 1.0. That means to be almost iddle. If your joystick is not configured propertly.. it won't be never be in beta stage.

You can notice you are in beta stage when you are on final good angle for descent.. and you just put the throttle to iddle.. All the thrust will be lost and the plane will sink to crash... so always is good to apply some kind of thrust on final.

[jdogg1012]

Ok, I think my plane is working correctly then, because I definitely noticed that you need to keep a little bit of thrust on landing approach, otherwise it will sink and crash as you described. I also noticed that if you pull the throttle too far back in flight, the RPMs will increase rapidly, which is presumably what happens when the props go into Beta. I was just confused because the "beta" warning light on the master warning panel doesn't always come on for me in those circumstances. That doesn't bother me though--it's easy enough to tell that the props are in Beta without seeing the warning light. Thanks for all the help so far!