Message from a real 737 pilot

[Morten]

Received this email today from Tanguy.  Awesome photo, so I thought I'd share it (with permission)

I'm a B737 pilot with more than 1500h on B737/300/400/500W and wanna congrat IXEG for the amazing product you created. Im Very impresed with the fidelity. Still some minor bugs and fix but its awesome. 

Attached is a pic for you guys.

Kind Regards!

Tanguy

Edited May 1, 2016 by Morten

[Alpha Floor]

Beautiful! Thanks a lot for sharing!

Just a "nit-picky" kind of question: Why is the clock on the real plane in line with the VSI. I assume this is airframe dependent.

Yes, quick search on airliners, this is from a LH D-ABXZ.

 

 

[Morten]

Yes, that is correct.  Different airlines have different instrumentation layout and as you know we did the Lufthansa layout

[Jovabra]

How do real 737 pilots perform a flightcontrol check during the prefight or is this a job for the groundmechanic. Are they going out of the cockpit, i don't think so.
 90% of the airliners aircraft have a surface position indicator even the old 747-100/200/300. I'm missing this sort of indication in the this 737. Next update maybe?

[Alpha Floor]

12 minutes ago, Jovabra said:

How do real 737 pilots perform a flightcontrol check during the prefight or is this a job for the groundmechanic. Are they going out of the cockpit, i don't think so.
 90% of the airliners aircraft have a surface position indicator even the old 747-100/200/300. I'm missing this sort of indication in the this 737. Next update maybe?

Hi!

The 737 has "conventional" controls, (not FBW), so you don't really need a Flight Controls synoptic, even though the 737NG and the 757/767 have it. Moving all three controls through their maximum range lets you know that:

1) No controls jam

2) Both controls, Captain and F/O, do the same thing.

If you have a look at FCOM Normal Procedures, in the Before Taxi flow you will check the Flight Controls as indicated here:

The 737 even has manual reversion, meaning you can fly the aircraft like if it where a Cessna (mechanical linkage) in case of complete hydraulic failure. The MD-80 is an interesting case, it's controlled via tabs that deflect in the opposite direction. So during a controls check in an MD-80 you're just moving the tabs, if the aileron itself is blocked you won't notice. uring the exterior walkaround you make sure that all flight controls are not jammed.

I believe all FBW aircraft have a flight controls synoptic so you can see where the controls are during the check. On the ground, the FBW logic is usually "direct". As we know, in a FBW aircraft the pilot can input a forward force on the column but then the elevator might go down or not, hahaha

Interestingly enough, there was a similar question today in AVSIM here.

Edited May 1, 2016 by Alpha Floor

[Morten]

BTW, anyone tried to fly manually without hydraulics yet? 

M

Edited May 1, 2016 by Morten

[Defiance_co]

Nice to post and share that Morten

About the Hydraulics ....... if it's a failure possibility then you can bet your behind to a barndance i'll be the first to get it lol

I'm guessing then that any input reflects per real life in that sittuation !

ps : Stay the course, and keep it real

Have Fun

Tony

[LPNils]

36 minutes ago, Morten said:

BTW, anyone tried to fly manually without hydraulics yet? 

M

Just shut off both systems during a circuit.
Dang. Landing is really scary without hydraulics.
And it's a proper fight for control while reaching out for the alternate gear levers & altn flap switch. For a 733 rookie that is.
Really interesting. But, a lot of fun! Thanks for the reminder Morten.

BTW: At the age of approx 13 I was a passenger on a full motion F70/100 sim. The capt requested an En-2 on departure from LOWI. Saw the guy fight the controls without hydraulics. Was really impressive. More impressive: he landed it quite nicely (180+ turn from 5000ft amsl, halfway down the runway). Even the instructor was amazed.

Edited May 1, 2016 by LPNils

[K4bel123]

36 minutes ago, Morten said:

BTW, anyone tried to fly manually without hydraulics yet? 

M

I´m going to try this out right now (approaching ENBR)

[LPNils]

1 minute ago, K4bel123 said:

I´m going to try this out right now (approaching ENBR)

Be gentle with controls, flies more like a laggy 747 than a 737. Good luck!

[Alpha Floor]

Without hydraulics I can imagine the response to a control input be much slower, so you'll have to anticipate every turn. Also I imagine you'd have to hold the control deflected until there's a noticeable bank, then release to neutral. And to level out you'll have to deflect the wheel in the opposite direction with a lot of anticipation.

The rudder has its own standby system, so that should still work. I imagine you could use the rudder to help you in small corrections.

[LPNils]

1 minute ago, Alpha Floor said:

Without hydraulics I can imagine the response to a control input be much slower, so you'll have to anticipate every turn. Also I imagine you'd have to hold the control deflected until there's a noticeable bank, then release to neutral. And to level out you'll have to deflect the wheel in the opposite direction with a lot of anticipation.

The rudder has its own standby system, so that should still work. I imagine you could use the rudder to help you in small corrections.

That's exactly what happened and what it 'felt' like. REALLY easy to induce oscillation n stuff.

[Morten]

Hehe.. yes we tried this several times in the Level D sim, and I can tell you that after a only couple of minutes you are totally exhausted because of the brutal force needed on the controls.  We tried to replicate the sluggishness of the Level D  as well as we could and think we did pretty good   But offcourse we cant control the forces on your hardware. Nevertheless, if you ever read about someone having to do this in real successfully, you'll have an idea of what kind of pilotskills are needed...

[Shifty]

Done it the real aircraft in the cruise a few times on an air test. Good fun but wouldn't like to fly an approach in real life using it hehe. 

Shifty

[jonfrederickl]

2 hours ago, Morten said:

Hehe.. yes we tried this several times in the Level D sim, and I can tell you that after a only couple of minutes you are totally exhausted because of the brutal force needed on the controls.  We tried to replicate the sluggishness of the Level D  as well as we could and think we did pretty good   But offcourse we cant control the forces on your hardware. Nevertheless, if you ever read about someone having to do this in real successfully, you'll have an idea of what kind of pilotskills are needed...

 

We NEED a force feedback yoke/joystick. Thrustmaster- heads up.

[cmbaviator]

14 minutes ago, jonfrederickl said:

We NEED a force feedback yoke/joystick. Thrustmaster- heads up.

https://vs3.irisdynamics.com/

[malombroso]

About the controls, I would like to ask one thing: in the xplane settings, should we use linear or non-linear? Cause I tried to set the settings on full left (on the right side of the joystick settings) but every time I restart xplane they are on the non-linear position. And also the nullzone, no matter what settins I enter, it always comes back to 5%... is it a setting that is forced by the IXEG? Or is it xplane that is not saving the settings when closing??? Please let me know.

[Litjan]

1 hour ago, malombroso said:

About the controls, I would like to ask one thing: in the xplane settings, should we use linear or non-linear? Cause I tried to set the settings on full left (on the right side of the joystick settings) but every time I restart xplane they are on the non-linear position. And also the nullzone, no matter what settins I enter, it always comes back to 5%... is it a setting that is forced by the IXEG? Or is it xplane that is not saving the settings when closing??? Please let me know.

We are not over-writing any of those settings, so it should not be a problem with our plane. Make sure to never close X-plane with the little "X" in the corner, always use the "close" dialog - or it will not save your settings.

For recommended control settings, read the documentation, it is also discussed in "Quickflight #1". We recommend 0 artificial stability and 25% non-linear, iirc.

Jan

 

[Morten]

These are the recommended settings for the sliders.  Also make sure that your NULLZONE is big enough to cover any SLACK/DEADBAND in your hardware, or you might experience twitchyness during taxi on the ground and the aircraft banking by itself in manual flight.

Edited May 2, 2016 by Morten

[FSSteven]

Only thing I do not understand: why is the IXEG standby horizontal indicator not a sphere but just like a flat plate or something? Are there more types of these instruments?

[Alpha Floor]

3 minutes ago, FSSteven said:

Only thing I do not understand: why is the IXEG standby horizontal indicator not a sphere but just like a flat plate or something? Are there more types of these instruments?

Yes, there's different types of ADIs (Attitude Direction Indicator)

See here: http://www.b737.org.uk/flightinsts.htm#Classic_Flight_Instruments

[Phantom88]

That's Fantastic!!

[dornier]

Hi Morten,

Does the real 737 FMC inhibit VNAV if there's a discontinuity in the route?  I.E., the normal discon between the approach and arrival.  Curious since that's how IXEG has it modeled.  

Thanks,

George

[Litjan]

10 hours ago, dornier said:

Hi Morten,

Does the real 737 FMC inhibit VNAV if there's a discontinuity in the route?  I.E., the normal discon between the approach and arrival.  Curious since that's how IXEG has it modeled.  

Thanks,

George

Hi George,

from the manual we know that an E/D point is needed to calculate the descent. That end of decent point is defined by "the last point before the end of route or discontinuity that holds a vertical restriction of AT or BELOW" (among some other options, like a runway waypoint, etc.)

We assumed that the FMS would also not allow VNAV for the climb and cruise if there is no E/D point. This assumption may be wrong, so we are looking at allowing this again in one of the next patches. If you like to fly without entering STARs and approaches right away, just assign a fixed altitude to the last waypoint, i.e. 35.000 (if your cruise alt is 35.000). That way you will have an E/D and VNAV should work.

Again, we intend to change this in the future.

Jan

 

[dornier]

14 hours ago, Litjan said:

Hi George,

from the manual we know that an E/D point is needed to calculate the descent. That end of decent point is defined by "the last point before the end of route or discontinuity that holds a vertical restriction of AT or BELOW" (among some other options, like a runway waypoint, etc.)

We assumed that the FMS would also not allow VNAV for the climb and cruise if there is no E/D point. This assumption may be wrong, so we are looking at allowing this again in one of the next patches. If you like to fly without entering STARs and approaches right away, just assign a fixed altitude to the last waypoint, i.e. 35.000 (if your cruise alt is 35.000). That way you will have an E/D and VNAV should work.

Again, we intend to change this in the future.

Jan

 

Hi Jan,

If it helps, the classic 757, 757/767 Pegasus, and 757/767 PIP versions of the FMC always allow for VNAV operation with a discontinuity.  It's normal practice to leave the discontinuity between the arrival (assuming no STAR transition for the approach) and the approach since ATC normally vectors you for an approach.  When the controller starts to vector you for the approach, it's common to INTC LEG to the most appropriate fix on the approach.  In either case, I would assume that the 737 would work the same as the 757/767 family.  

Thanks,

George