Litjan

Quick heads-up: I shot 50 mins worth of footage this morning to show a full cockpit preparation from a cold and dark (and I mean COLD and DARK) aircraft until the plane finally levels of at 7000 feet in the early morning sun - it will take another few hours for the movies to process, get reviewed by the team, and finally uploaded to youtube. Jan

Hi folks, no fighting or it´s off to your rooms! It looks like the next preview videos will be two at just over ten minutes each, showing a full "cold and dark" startup, terminating when taxiing out to the departure runway. I have done a "dry run" yesterday, and the team reviewed the video and we are implementing some minor tweaks and fixes to small issues that showed up during this test. One was some lit areas of the panel that were shining at night, even though there was no elec power, for example. I will explain as I go in my usual rambling style, and barring any showstoppers I will shoot the final version next Monday/Tuesday and it will go up on our channel shortly thereafter. If there is any system or process that you would like to have some more information on feel free to ask for it here, I will try to accommodate that in those videos. The rough idea is an early morning startup for a completely dormant, unpowered aircraft, including all system checks. Secondary objective is to point out the different sounds that we implemented recently, all the way from gyro spin to pack outlets. Jan

I think I can definitely rule out next two months... Again, forecasting a release date is like forecasting the weather in a few months. As Morten has said, progress is slow but steady, and I will probably ramp up my preview-video production again soon. I have some interesting ideas, and in a little while it may even be time to start on a series of "official" tutorial videos that go along with our written documentation. For that I need the cockpit to be a bit closer to its final form, otherwise people will get a wrong impression from the videos. Morten described the progress on the sound system, and I can only second his words, it is really immersive. We humans seem to rely on eyesight, but all the other senses are merrily feeding input all the same, so it is tough to create a "suspension of disbelief" on sight alone. Technology won´t allow us the "feel" and "smell" part (yet), but having a realistic sound environment helps a lot! Now the correct sound is of high importance to me, because I spent roughly 6000 hours sitting in that cockpit. Alarms go off in my head as soon as something is slightly off, so getting those sounds right is a high priority. And I also believe that some of you will be a bit surprised as to what sounds to hear and how. Let me give you two examples. First, the engines. Many of you have flown on 737´s as passengers and the experience of a passenger is very different sound-wise to that of a pilot. The cockpit is a noisy place, with lots of fans, airconditioning, standby altimeter vibrator and what not. You would be surprised, but when starting the engines, you don´t really hear a thing from them until they spin up to maybe 10-15% N1, the most sensory feedback on them turning is a low frequency vibration. Another one is the flaps. Everyone knows that "wheeeeeeee" sound when the hydraulic flap motor moves the trailing edge flaps, just watch one of the myriad "omg I sat right on the window next to the flaps just watch my 15 minute video of them doing nothing most of the time supercool video!". Now when you are in the cockpit, you don´t hear them move at all, unless all the other "big" sounds (engines, aircon) are off. We create the same effect, so if you move your viewpoint to the cabin, (or outside near the wheel well) you will hear the flaps move, in the cockpit only when it´s fairly quiet. I guess all I can say is hang in there, I sincerely believe it is worth the wait and you will not be disappointed if you are looking for a true replication of the 737-300. Jan

Me, too. Will see if I can find the time to do a tiny youtube movie on how I engage the CTOT and maybe you can spot the difference in what we are doing. Might take until Wednesday, though, still away from home flying... Jan

I don´t think its the joystick, as the engine controller will start setting the torque without regard to the power levers. You have the CTOT switches in "arm"? The condition lever is in the high power regime? Oh, and don´t look at the powerlevers - they will not move. Just look at the torque on the engine guages. Don´t confuse powerlever angle with torque (although they both count in %). Jan

The power levers not only need to be over 64%, they ALSO need to be within a certain range of the set torque (25% iirc). I believe this is done as a safeguard, so that the engines don´t suddently roar to full power if you accidentially advance the levers a bit too much while taxiing. So after setting the desired torque and arming both CTOT switches you need to slowly advance the powerlevers until you can see the torque moving up towards the target level "all by itself". It works best when moving the levers slowly - if you slam them forward you might end up very close to the desired level, and then the effect of the engines holding that autonomously isn´t very pronounced. You wil also see that you were in CTOT mode when trying to reduce power after takeoff. The torque seems to "stick", until the levers are out of that 25% range, then the power snaps back. Thats why the correct procedure is to disarm the CTOT switches first. Jan

I am with you in welcoming new technology. I think the NG is a great aircraft, and the MAX will be even better. Thats just the way advancement in technology goes. For us the choice of simulating the "classic" came about with the availability of data for it, and the "iconic" nature of this aircraft. Plus the cool hybrid cockpit that seems to combine the best of two worlds (can´t beat big round mechanical airspeed indicators and altimeters for readability, even if you install a 50" plasma screen!). And don´t forget that in the last two years while we were developing this bird the real classics use was declining, at least with the major airlines. But I am sure the classics will keep flying in some parts of the world for many years to come. As an airline, the desire to operate new aircraft is paramount - less fuel and operating costs. As a simulation pilot you don´t have to worry about that (hmm, do I sense a great business model here?), so the option of operating newer or older aircraft is a matter of choice. I personally think that flying older or even vintage aircraft is a great way to experience different stages in aviation history, and I think that operating an older aircraft can be far more interesting than just watching a modern aircraft go through it´s automation steps. Jan

I have actually no idea why the distances are so different. I am sure there is a reason, but it´s probably technical. I always looked at the handle when setting flaps, and only set them wrong (2 instead of 5) once in my 10 years of flying the 737. The gates at 1 and 15 are there to prevent inadvertent retraction of flaps too far in a go-around situation. During a normal approach (flaps 30 or 40) the go-around command is "go-around, flaps 15" and the pilot monitoring immediately raises the flaps to 15. The gate will stop him from raising them too far by accident, because you have to set the lever down into the 15 notch before you can lift it out and further up again. The same principle applies to the single-engine go-around, where your approach will be with flaps 15, then on the go-around you will raise the flaps to 1. Jan

You mean why there are gates at 1 and 15?

Rest assured, it is about 5x more complex to operate the DCS A-10C compared to even a real 737. I have spent a lot of time with the A-10, and whenever I don´t fly it for 2 weeks, I have to start over learning the systems and controls from scratch. It is a nightmare in ergonomics, not quite as bad as russian hardware, but close. The 737 is made to be easy to learn and fly and not to give you a tough time when times are tough (unlike some more "modern" passenger airliners ). Jan

Glad you got it to work. Don´t ask how many times I thought I found a bug when testing this aircraft, only to find out it behaves exactly like it should and I just missed a step somewhere...

Just a wild shot here, but it does sound like you ARMED the NAV mode (nav in white) but it never captured (i.e. never close enough to the VOR-Radial you are trying to track). In this case the autopilot (and flight-director) will stay in HDG mode and follow the heading bug, until the autoflight computer "feels" that its getting close enough to the radial to intercept it. Only at that point NAV will turn green, and HDG will turn off. If you are in HDG mode, you can not deselect it, because what would the autopilot/flight-director do then? It has no other mode to revert to. Thats why pushing the HDG button does nothing if you are already in heading mode. Jan

Also make sure that the chocks are removed - that happened to me . Just go to external view to check... So in summary: 1.) Plane must be started up properly (engines running in right mode to create forward thrust) 2.) Electrical power must be available (to work the brakes) 3.) Parking brake lever must be down (either by mouse manipulation or using V or B keys) 4.) Chocks must be removed (check with outside view, remove them with the "ground equipment" tab on the sidebar) 5.) Just to make sure check the brake dataref with the "display on screen" and you can also check the thrust the engines put out in the same way. If all that fails, you might have parked in a big spill of superglue . Jan

Also try to display the "landing gear" parameters so you can see at what ratio your brakes are applied. V usually puts the brake ratio at 1.0, where B only puts it to 0.5 (both will be enough to keep the aircraft stationary). You can choose the display at "settings" "data display", iirc. Jan

Oh, I didn´t know that - guess I have to try the ranges in XP again, maybe they did increase those since the last time I did some longer VOR crosscountry flights. Thanks for the heads-up! Jan Edit: Just tried it in XP10, and indeed the ranges of the VOR´s seem realistic (received a T-VOR at 60NM at FL250, with it´s offical range being 25NM), so I stand corrected on my previous claims of inadequate range. All is well .

I really don´t know, fortunately our dispatch department files all the flightplans for us - but I will give them a call and ask them about it. I remember that I was copilot on a flight from EDDS to EDDF in 1999 where the FMS on our B737 had failed. We navigated with VOR´s and radar vectoring, and at least back then (14 years ago, though!) it seemed to be no problem. Jan

The range of VOR´s in X-Plane is in sync with the GUARANTEED reception of VOR´s. In the real world, you are usually able to receive them at a significantly longer range. I regularly fly approaches in X-Plane that I am familiar with from real flying and can not receive navaids that I can regularly receive at that altitude in the real world. I can regularly receive VOR stations from as far away as 200NM, so limiting them to 130NM is artificial and not in line with the real world (even though in line with official documentation). Jan

Yes, i am a real Airbus pilot (unfortunately), but that still doesn´t mean I know everything about these things . Implementation of new features in air traffic is woefully slow, and a lot of cool features are feasible and planned, but usually get implemented VERY slow, because most airlines shy away from the cost of installing new equipment and lobby the politicians to stall requirements that make them do so. I think it is still possible to fly IFR in Germany without B-RNAV capability (even above Fl100), you just have to indicate so on your flightplan, and certain routes may be off-limits to you then. There are certain arrival and departure routes that require a certain navigation performance (P-RNAV, RNP 1, etc.) and those can´t be flown without RNAV equipment, but I think airports have to have alternative procedures to accomodate those planes that can´t fly the RNAV SIDS and STARS. It is pretty common standard, though, and flying a complicated arrival route without the aid of RNAV is at least very challenging - you also can not accept any direct routings and that alone will pay for the needed equipment fairly quick. So I applaud the decision of LES to add that sort of capability to the Saab - it will not only make online flying feasible, but will also aid the run-of-the-mills offline pilot like me, wo just wants to go from A to B in a straight line without worrying about the totally unrealistic short-ranged VOR´s that X-Plane 10 still has (and THAT is another story...). Jan

I am all down with that, but the initial statement was that GPS was required above FL100, and that is not the case. B-RNAV is not dependent on GPS and many of the A320 family aircraft I fly do not have GPS equipment (or they do, but it is not tied to the navigational equipment, but only serves to power the EGPWS position). The ANP is much better than the RNP of B-RNAV, of course, because they have 3 IRS systems that back up the position with info from DME, VOR and LOC receivers. Jan Edit: Oh, I just read the .pdf - it is a planned schedule for implementation! That made me laugh - do you have any idea for how long they tried to implement some stuff (like CPDLC, for example)? This might happen some time - like in 20 years :-)

I don´t know where you read that, but if it´s true then I am breaking the law almost daily!

Alright, you want a cockpit lamp? You get it! This parking brake light is barely 2 days old. The fire warning lights are older, I just pulled the test switch for some more colour and effect in the image. Jan

Only if you find time while flying your advance copy, of course ;-)

Oh, and Mike, please polish the gold bars before delivery! We like shiny things...

well, you can certainly guess what is the most important supply from galley to cockpit on those early morning or all night flights?

Alright, here goes nothing: