DC-3 failures and failures

[wim1976]

The DC-3 is one of my favourite planes to fly in the sky, but yesterday I flied from with a heavy load with passengers en goods from ENGM to ENSO and encountered many problems which I want to share with you.

 

After a quiet flight for about three quartes during sunset and little wind I had to change my fuel tanks to the auxiliary tanks. I switched on the boost pumps and switched the left tank, then I switched the right tank, for some reasons this gave problems. Dragging the manipulator ended in shutting of the fuel flow and nothing helps to switch to the right tank. While struggling with the fuelswitch the right engine lost power and the engine fell out. Problem 1: Why is it so difficult to select the right fuel tank?

 

Because I keep too busy with the fuel tanks, the stall horn warns me for a real problem, so I concentrate to get the plane in a level flight. Then I decided to feather the left engine: right mixture, right propeller and right throttle down, followed by pressing the red feather button. Next step what I did was setting the trim tabs of the rudder and aileron to get a more hands-off level flight. OK in the end I was flying again while loosed about 1,400 feet altitude. With the external view I looked to the propellers, but the right propeller still turns. Problem 2: Feathering procedure doesn't work, doesn't it?

 

After applying power on the left engine I was able to gain some altitude so with 6,000 feet I alsmost scaped the fsjord of Norway 30 nm from my planned destination. After flying again I finally get the fuel tank selected to the auxiliary tank, so I tried to restart the engine, but I could not find a checklist to start the engine in flight, also some guessing of the procedures doesn't result in a starting engine. Problem 3: What is the procedure for restarting the engine in flight?

 

Then after some minutes my monitor turns black and it looks like the GPU-driver restarted. After that the screen turns normal again (I have this problem very often with the DC-3 although less frequent with my new GPU (GTX 770) than with my old one (AMD 7950). Problem4: Is the DC-3 the cause of GPU driver faults?

 

The airfield gets in sight and I prepared the approach, but while lessen to much power my plane lost to much altitude and with ine engine it was not possible to stop loosing altitude, so I decided to make a crash-landing on water. This attempt succeed somehow, after ditching the beach I was swimming in the sea, while the lights of the airfield flashes a wet welcome! See the attached picture of the crash landing. All in all it was quiet funny.

Edited August 28, 2013 by wim1976

[Hueyman]

Problem 2: Feathering procedure doesn't work, doesn't it?

 

 

Default feathered prop values are false and don't allow the prop to come to a stop due to windmilling ( feather angle should produce less drag as possible, so ideally it meant a 0° angle between relative wind and the blade's chord

 

Adjust values in Plane Maker until you don't see any more prop turning in cruise speed when feathering them

 

Problem 3: What is the procedure for restarting the engine in flight?

 

Normally in that kind of engine, you have to unfeather ( depress the red button ), and prop levers full forward. The electrically driven un-feathering pump should have enough energy to allow 2-3 unfeathering ( without any oil pressure as this engine is shut off ). With the blades slowly coming out of feather the prop should start windmill again due to relative wind and now, mags both On and mixture to auto-rich ( full forward )

 

Hope this helps, have no idea about the tank selection nor driver GPU though ...

[Goran_M]

I'll take a look at the fuel issue you are describing and see what I can come up with.  
i'll reply back here soon with any findings.

[sqrt(-1)]

Then after some minutes my monitor turns black and it looks like the GPU-driver restarted. After that the screen turns normal again (I have this problem very often with the DC-3 although less frequent with my new GPU (GTX 770) than with my old one (AMD 7950). 

 

Problem4: Is the DC-3 the cause of GPU driver faults?

 

 

The DC-3 has absolutely nothing to do with your GPU faults.

 

There is a known issue with TDRs (Timeout Detection and Recovery) with the NVIDIA drivers after version 314.22.  Since the GTX 700 Series GPU cards require drivers from 320 and higher, they are affected.  NVIDIA is working on this and should have a remedy for this issue relatively soon.  The 326.80 Beta is available for testing, but a small percentage of users are still experiencing some problems.  There is a theory circulating (only a theory) that some recent Windows updates may be at the root of the problem.

[wim1976]

Thanks for the replies, these could be useful

 

Adjust values in Plane Maker until you don't see any more prop turning in cruise speed when feathering them

 

This seems difficult to me. What value do I have to change and why have the developer not applied these values?

 

I'll take a look at the fuel issue you are describing and see what I can come up with.

 

I have tested changing fuel tanks and I come with the following findings:

- While zooming in (because you want to read the text of the switches) it becomes far more difficult to select the right switch, it seems that the screen is to small

- At the top of the screen the the manipulator reacts you need much more space to change the switch. At the bottom of the screen it is much easier to select the switches (maybe zoomlevel and perspective are possible causes?)

 

Then the story goes further...

 

My boss asked to exercise some crash landings with a retracted landinggear so I can do this safe. After taking off from runway 32 of ENSO I closed the throttles and return to the airfield. Applying full flaps to get as slow as possible I land with as less as possible vertical speed. The fire-alarm of the engines start screaming when hitting te groudn, not strange when the propellers hit the ground, but then the gear get extened and the plane roses and come to a stop just beside the runway. Problem 5: Why is the gear extracting when making a crash-landing with gear up? However in many planes a crash landing ends in skiing very long distances over the ground, which is not very realistic I suppose 

 

After the plan got repaired (a special thanks to the mecaniciens of X-Plane for their hard en quick work) I flew to ENBR. No problems occured but I got an idea for a possible feature (probably for X-Plane as a whole). In flight I switched the radiofrequencies to the VOR of ENBR, a short moment I had no idea if I flew correctly, because I did not see any instruments or the environment. For a moment the plane banked and the passengers got upset of the strange maneuvre. Idea 1: Is it possible to have some very basic gauges (e.g. attitude indicator, v/s indicator, airspeed indicator and a NAV-instrument) in the bottom of the screen as an overlay. This can help me to fly correctly while being busy with changing Radio frequencies, Fuel selections, monitoring instruments). Of course it would be nice to activate the overlay with a button or key so you can see it when you need it. I have seen something like this in Rise of Flight. OK after all I made a very good landing an ENGR (no jumping or bumping, while the approach was very steady keeping the lights of the runway 2 red and 2 white all the way). End good all good!

[Hueyman]

 

This seems difficult to me. What value do I have to change and why have the developer not applied these values?

 

Okay, I will test and give you the correct values. I have no idea why they don't put correct values, maybe they just copy those from the Aircraft Flight Manual, that can almost never be simply copied to plane maker, as plane maker isn't a 100% accurate rendition of real life aerodynamics etc ... in that case, it depends on the blade twist ( pitch changing along blade length etc etc )

 

For the landing gear automatically lowering when engine failure, I already noticed that ... this is probably yo help beginners when they killed the engines, helping them to save time and reduce workload ... but totally unrealistic. I will take a look at plane maker and see what can be done, I'm sure it is a check box somewhere in PM .. if it's not

[Hueyman]

Ok Wim, so I found the " sweet spot " value ...

 

Go to plane maker, open the DC-3, then Standard>Engine Specs>Description Tab and in feathered pitch of prop you change the 88.0° to 77.5°

 

Then save the plane and enjoy your now full stopped prop when feathered ( like the real ones ). Only from time to time, the wind makes it a fraction of turn against the cylinder compression, but this is how X-Plane manage piston engine

 

Hope this helps

 

PS : No found anything for auto retracting landing gear .... this is obviously in their code, ask Goran for that

Edited August 29, 2013 by Hueyman