JRBarrett

If a fire bottle is inadvertently discharged in the real airplane it cannot be refilled on wing. The entire extinguisher has to be removed and a new one installed. The depleted extinguisher is sent back to the manufacturer (Kidde Aerospace) to be overhauled and refilled. When the extinguisher is activated, an explosive squib fires, which shatters a metal plug in the outlet and allows the pressurized halon extinguishing agent to discharge. Only the manufacturer has the tooling and equipment to replace the plug and refill the bottle. For maximum accuracy in a future update, there should be a maintenance option to “replace” a specific extinguisher (engine or APU) rather than “refill”.

Some switches are latching, some are not. The stab trim switches, Mach trim and yaw damper switches are momentary contact types - they are spring loaded to the “up” position. The only way to tell if the stab channels and yaw dampers have been engaged is to monitor the EICAS. For some reason Bombardier decided to put a light in the Mach trim, but not the others. Most of the overhead panel switches are latching (with status lights), but not all. On the CRJ-200, the 14th stage bleed air switches are lit when disengaged (even if the engine is shut down), while on the 605 the lights only become active after engine start, though it actually has no adverse effect during engine start even if they are left engaged. The APU master switch has no status light in the real airplane or in the sim. That is one that would benefit from a tooltip to indicate if it is pressed or not. The external power switch is another one that would benefit from a tooltip, as it is easy to leave it accidentally pressed in after the APU is started and the GPU is disconnected.

Several years ago, I attended a 3-week initial maintenance training class on the Challenger 604 at FlightSafety. The animated systems graphics in the add-on considerably exceed the official training materials in both quality and detail!

I am a AME certified on the CL604 and CRJ-200. Indeed, in the real aircraft, you really have to “stomp” on the brake pedals hard, or the parking brake handle will not pull up to set the brakes. I just purchased the 650 today and I am extremely impressed. The level of detail in the systems is the best I have ever seen in any add-on aircraft on any platform!

Have you accessed the refueling panel (on the wall behind the pilot’s seat)? You have to energize it and open the tank valves in order to take fuel.

I have verified that "Automatically update my license" and "notify me when my license is updated" are both enabled in Gizmo preferences. The auto-update option has always been set to "on" so far as I know. I went to the "X-Aviation Licensing" menu within Gizmo, and forced an update check, (this with X-Plane already fully loaded), and it did so without asking me for credentials, and reset the counter. It appears that the license will be automatically checked when 2 days remain before the 15-day interval has passed since the last check. That does not seem to present a problem when I use XP every day. The problem, (at least for me), seems to occur when I have not used XP for a period of time - i.e., if I last use it on day 12, and don't boot the sim again until day 20, that is when it seems to require that I re-enter my email and password. Nothing has changed on my computer in terms of hardware for months. I will see what happens when the next auto-update check occurs, which should happen in 13 days from now if my understanding of the log is correct. FWIW. here is the content of the most recent Gizmo log: debug: 4.249: Firmware v18.02.21.1358 debug: 4.254: X-Plugins OBJ8 Loader v15.01.11 debug: 4.445: * gxt.refresh().. debug: 4.448: gxt: AutoLoading.. debug: 4.449: gxt.load: Console debug: 4.449: gxt.load: ToolTray debug: 4.450: gxt.load: HotFix debug: 4.450: gxt.load: Mute debug: 4.451: gxt.load: Preferences debug: 4.451: gxt.load: RebootButton debug: 4.451: gxt.load: GateKeeper debug: 4.452: X-Aviation Licensing: Load license.. debug: 4.454: X-Aviation Licensing: License is valid. debug: 4.512: gxt.load: MAXX_RWC debug: 4.513: gxt.load: LuaGC debug: 4.513: gxt.load: Shell debug: 4.514: gxt: Completed AutoLoad. debug: 22.232: --- -- - -- --- -- - -- --- -- - -- --- -- - -- --- -- - -- --- debug: 22.235: Firmware v18.02.21.1358 debug: 22.240: X-Plugins OBJ8 Loader v15.01.11 debug: 22.431: * gxt.refresh().. debug: 22.526: gxt: AutoLoading.. debug: 22.528: gxt.load: Console debug: 22.528: gxt.load: ToolTray debug: 22.529: gxt.load: HotFix debug: 22.529: gxt.load: Mute debug: 22.530: gxt.load: Preferences debug: 22.530: gxt.load: RebootButton debug: 22.531: gxt.load: GateKeeper debug: 22.532: X-Aviation Licensing: Load license.. debug: 22.534: X-Aviation Licensing: License is valid. debug: 22.592: gxt.load: MAXX_RWC debug: 22.592: gxt.load: LuaGC debug: 22.593: gxt.load: Shell debug: 22.593: gxt: Completed AutoLoad. debug: 75.148: X-Aviation Licensing: Auto license update is on. debug: 75.148: X-Aviation Licensing: License days remaining: 15.00 - No update required. debug: 75.148: X-Aviation Licensing: Update required when <= 2.00 days. debug: 85.250: Called: GateKeeper_OnShow

No I haven't as yet, but I have always understood that regular license re-verifications are part of the way that X-Aviation DRM works, and that having to re-enter ones credentials from time-to-time is unavoidable. Even X-Plane itself does this with its own DRM if it has not been run for quite some time. If it has been a matter of weeks since last run, X-Plane will usually present a pop-up window during loading while the authorization key for the installation is re-verified with Laminar's servers. The X-Aviation license check has never been an issue in the past on my system, because the other two products I own that use X-Aviation DRM are aircraft, and they do not load into the sim environment until specifically chosen. The problem I am reporting specifically affects TerraMax, because the seasonal textures load as part of X-Plane's initialization routine. When a license check is active, the textures cannot fully load because the license check has not been completed - but the credentials cannot be entered into the X-Aviation pop-up window because the system hangs while trying to load the textures. When X-Plane finally gives up, the message logged in Windows error reporting is AppHang (for the X-Plane process), and the last entry in the X-Plane log file references TerraMax awaiting license verification. I understand that you do not control the DRM that protects your software - but I wanted to make you aware of this blocking condition, because if it affects me, it will undoubtedly affect other TerraMax customers sooner or later. One cannot predict when the X-Aviation DRM is going to request a credential re-verification. I have been doing most of my flights in the northern US, so at the moment, I have been using the TerraMax "hard winter" textures as default. Jim Barrett

From time-to-time I get a pop-up window when starting X-Plane requiring me to re-enter my X-Aviation email and password to re-authorize my license. This will always occur if I have not opened XP for some time, but today I got the re-authorization check even though I last used XP-11 just 4 days ago. Unfortunately, now that TerraMax is installed, this is causing XP to crash. I cannot access the license validation text box to enter my information because XP is hung trying to load TerraMax seasonal textures, but apparently cannot complete the operation because the system is waiting for license revalidation. It's a classic "Catch 22" situation. Eventually I get a Windows 10 error that "X-Plane has stopped responding", and I have to close the program. The only way I can correct it is to temporarily move the TerraMax folder out of /resources/plugins. I can then start X-Plane, successfully revalidate the X-Aviation license, close X-Plane, put the TerraMax plugin back, and finally re-start X-Plane again. I've never quite understood why these regular X-Aviation license re-validation checks are required. Is not the license info permanently stored on my computer somewhere? In any case, the only way I can see to avoid having this problem is to re-enable default XP seasonal textures in the TerraMax config screen before closing X-Plane, on the off chance that a license re-validation request is going to come up the next time I start the sim at a later time. Jim Barrett

If I may suggest as a consideration for future improvement of the product that perhaps elevation could also be taken into account? Though ABQ is at latitude 35N, it is also at over 5,000 feet elevation. It’s not as frigid there by any means as someplace like northern Minnesota - but it can get quite cold. Overnight lows below freezing are the rule from Dec to Feb, and snow is possible at any time in the city during the winter months - and the surrounding mountains typically always have snow cover in winter. This is even more the case farther west over the Colorado Plateau of northern Arizona, which is at even higher elevation. Even at latitude 35 north, snow on the ground is the rule in mid winter, not the exception in this part of the state. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate what you have done with this product, working within the current limitations of X-Plane, but taking ground elevation into account might help bring more realistic winter depictions in mountainous plateau parts of the world (where latitude alone might otherwise suggest non-winter textures).

From the description page for Terramaxx: “Automatic swapping of X-Plane’s default scenery with seasonal representations of summer, autumn, mild winter, and deep winter based on your simulated location, date, and temperature.” I know there is a temperature setting to control the switch from mild to hard winter -perhaps that is what is being referenced.

I have been having good results with the winter seasonal textures at airports in the northern US. However, I had an issue at Albuquerque, NM (KABQ) The airport is only at 35 degrees latitude, and it appears TM is coded to set summer textures no matter what. I was using real-world time in the sim (04 January), and real weather provided by ASXP. The weather was very cold (-14 C), and it was snowing heavily, yet TM insisted on setting “summer” textures. I know that in the product description is says that it should take the in-sim date and weather into account. Perhaps that only affects the division between “mild” and “hard” winter. Is there a specific latitude below which TM will always set summer in auto mode? I can, of course, force-load winter textures for any location through the menu. There are many locations in the US at approx 35 degrees latitude that can nonetheless occasionally get heavy snow in the dead of winter.

I shall do so if it happens again

This has happened twice while flying in cruise at FL350 - about 45 minutes into the flight. It's not a true CTD, in the sense that XP does not simply disappear and put me back onto the desktop. In both cases, just before the crash, the engine sounds suddenly cut out for a second, then come back on, and right after that XP's own error reporting window pops up, inviting me to enter my email and send a crash report - which I did. Looking at the gizmo log, I see no obvious errors. It just stops at the moment of the crash. The main XP log does not show any errors either, the entries look normal right up to the very last entry which simply says "the application has crashed". I realize this may not be an IXEG error at all. The aircraft seemed to be working well in 11.02, this started after 11.05r1. I didn't know if there were any other logs that I could reference for a clue to what might have caused it. I did find the XP crash report log -but it contains a long text string of data that I presume only the developers at Laminar can decode. Jim Barrett

I thought I had read somewhere that the IXEG aircraft included (simulated) insect spatters on the windscreen to give it a more realistic look? The marks in the photo above appear to be surrounded by rectangular boxes, so perhaps they are indeed unwanted graphic artifacts. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

You are right about the cost. I work in avionics maintenance in a corporate flight department. A single Honeywell Laseref IV IRS costs over $500,000 new[emoji33]

I believe that normally, it would be set to "rise". This system monitors the oil temperature of the generator drive units on each engine. The "generators" on a 737 are actually "alternators", which produce 3-phase AC voltage at approximately 118 volts. The problem with an alternator is that the frequency of the AC voltage it produces will vary with the speed that the engine is turning, but the systems on the aircraft depend on the frequency of the AC being precisely 400 Hz. The generator drive unit sits between the engine accessory gearbox, and the generator. It works somewhat like an automatic transmission on an automobile, and will turn the generator at a constant speed, no matter what speed the engine is rotating. The drive unit has its own dedicated oil supply, oil pump and oil cooler. When the switch is set to "IN", the lower scale of the gauge is measuring the temperature of the oil that is entering the drive unit, after passing through the oil cooler. In "RISE" position, the associated gauge is showing the relative increase (rise) in the oil temperature after it has passed through the drive. (Read on the upper scale). If the temperature rise of the oil, after passing through the drive unit, exceeds 20 degrees C, it could indicate the the generator load is too high. If the temperature gauge reads in the yellow zone with the switch in the "IN" position, it would likely mean there is a problem in the oil cooler If the drive oil temps remain high, and cannot be corrected by reducing generator load, it could indicate an impending failure of the drive unit itself, in which case it may be necessary to activate the guarded "disconnect" switch. This will mechanically disconnect the generator drive input shaft from the engine, and will result in the loss of the generator voltage on that side. Once the disconnect system is activated, it can only be reconnected on the ground, by a maintenance engineer.

Thank you.

Was curious if the hot fixes for the 733 are cumulative, or if they depend on the preceding hot fix? I am currently running 1.03 - may I update directly to 1.05, or should I install 1.04 first? Thanks! Jim Barrett Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

I can't say for sure regarding the 733, but in most aircraft, the auto throttle switch is electrically latched to the "on" (or "arm") position, and cannot be engaged when the aircraft is unpowered. This would appear to be normal behavior. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

It can be difficult to find an exact value for the cooling rate, since there are so many variables. Initial temperature of the fuel, quantity in the tank, size and shape of the tank etc. The problem of Jet-A cooling to the point where freezing potentially might become an issue mainly affects aircraft on very long transoceanic flights which spend many hours in cruise. The opposite effect happens too - once thoroughly chilled, the fuel remaining in the tanks can take quite some time to warm back up after landing. On very humid days, I've seen frost form on the underside of the wings of aircraft that have just landed from a 5-hour transcontinental flight - even though the air temperature might be over +20C!

Aviation jet fuel takes quite a long time to cool from whatever temperature it had when it was placed into the aircraft tanks. Depending on the aircraft's speed, fuel that started out at +20C on the ground, could take over 2 hours of exposure to -50C temps aloft before its temperature would drop significantly below 0C. Even then, the fuel will only drop to the TAT (True Air Temperature) "felt" by the airframe structure, which is often 10 to 20 degrees C warmer than the SAT (Static) OAT. The difference between SAT and TAT depends on the aircraft's speed. Of course, the rate at which the fuel cools depends on many factors. Fuel loaded in the tanks in Miami in July at +40 C, will take much longer to chill down in cruise, than fuel loaded in Boston in January, which might have already been cold-soaked to -5C in the fuel truck before even going into the aircraft. The size of the tanks plays a role too. Fuel stored in thin wings will cool faster than fuel in thick wings (more capacity). And, fuel in wing tanks cools faster than center tank fuel, for similar reasons. In any case, seeing fuel significantly warmer than ambient OAT is perfectly normal until the aircraft has been at sustained cold temperatures at the flight levels for quite a long time. I have seen many add-on aircraft (mainly in FSX) that get this completely wrong - where the fuel "instantly" assumes the outside air temperature in a climb - which is not what actually happens in a real aircraft. Questo messaggio c'est envoyé von meinem iPhone utilizando Tapatalk

Be sure that the degrees portion of the longitude contains 3 digits. In other words, if your longitude is 75 degrees, 14.5 minutes west, you would enter in as W07514.5 or if the longitude was 5 degrees, 14.5 minutes, you would enter it as W00514.5 Likewise, the latitude degrees entry needs to be two digits, with a leading zero if the current latitude is less than 10 degrees. Not sure if this is the cause of your problem, but it is one common user error that would prevent the IRS from accepting the PPOS. Although it is possible to enter your present position directly into the IRS control unit in the overhead panel, the more typical procedure would be to key it in using the FMS CDU.

The pilot's VOR course selector on the flight guidance panel shows "0" when a course of due north is selected, while the copilot's selector displays "360". I have seen both ways of displaying a north track in actual aircraft, and either is correct - but usually both selectors are the same. It's no real problem, and perhaps there is a reason why it is configured this way due to the way XP works internally.

Yes, but don't confuse the function of the two switches. The 5-position switch on the left side marked OFF, TA, TA/RA, ABV, BLW controls the TCAS, which works WITH the transponder, but is not the transponder itself. The transponder is controlled by the 3-position switch on the right side marked STBY, AUTO, ON. When the transponder switch is in AUTO mode, it will not transmit on the ground. As long as the weight-on-wheels sensors on the landing gear detect that the aircraft is on the ground, the transponder remains in Standby. It will start transmitting the squawk code and aircraft altitude as soon as the aircraft becomes airborne. In ON mode, the transponder is active no matter what the aircraft's air/ground status is. In STBY mode, the transponder remains off, even if airborne. A summary of switch positions would be: NON ASDE-X airport: Leave the TCAS switch at TA/RA, and the transponder switch at AUTO. (This is the IXEG default state). In this scenario, the transponder comes ON at takeoff, and goes into STBY on landing. ASDE-X airport. Set the TCAS switch OFF, and the transponder switch ON, once pushback commences. When cleared for takeoff, switch the TCAS switch to TA/RA. Once airborne, you can switch the transponder from ON back to AUTO. If landing at a NON-ASDE-X airport, just leave the switches in the default positions: TCAS at TA/RA, and transponder at AUTO. If landing at an ASDE-X airport, switch the transponder from AUTO to ON at some point before touchdown. After landing, and after exiting the runway, leave the transponder ON, but turn the TCAS to off. Once parked at the gate and shutdown, go back to default positions: transponder to AUTO and TCAS back to TA/RA. Of course, X-Plane airports don't actually have ASDE-X, so for the majority of users, just leave the TCAS and transponder switches at their default positions. The above techniques are really only for those who want to practice real-world procedures with 100% accuracy. If you want to know if a particular airport has ASDE-X, you can download the r/w airport taxi diagram from a place like SkyVector. If ASDE-X is in use, there will be a note on the chart instructing pilots to turn transponders ON while taxiing.

And a track distortion can happen on a basic RNAV Departure too ? ++ [emoji4] The results with a true RNP approach are unpredictable, since the FMS is not capable of dealing with curved leg segments - but other strange graphics artifacts on normal RNAV approaches or departures may indeed be bugs which have to be addressed by the developers. The issue with incorrect or disappearing speed/altitude constraints may be something else entirely. I believe it was mentioned that improvements in this area may be forthcoming in the next patch.