bpcw0001

Hi, for a while now, I've been losing GPS when approaching Berlin (EDDB) airport. On inspection of the GPS jammer map provided with the challenger, it shows a GPS jamming station which according to that map must be somewhere just south of Berlin: However, there is no GPS jamming in Germany listed anywhere. Neither in the CL650's "gps_jammers.txt" file, nor in any other available gps jammer source on the internet. Where does this jamming station come from???

Thanks for the insights. I had already been wondering as to why have an FD (even mandated by regulations) if that thing cannot provide precise guidance during precision approaches. My observation is that in the HS Challenger, the flight director reacts quite promptly to glide slope deviations, but appears relatively unprecise when it comes to lateral deviation. The same goes for the X-bar display in the HS challenger. Like I said, if I flew only the FD in the HS challenger with respect to *lateral* deviation, I might end up left or right next to the runway. The "green needle" on the rose though provides accurate lateral deviation information. That's what I find puzzling. Why does the green needle deviation not seem to translate into lateral FD commands?

It should look more like this: rather than this: Currently, it is too washed out and the contrast is not optimal. I hope the Hot Start guys get around to improving this. I venture a guess that maybe changing some color values is not a huge effort? It would certainly be cool if HS got around to providing a config file for different EFIS color values, where users can tweak the colors themselves. Edit: Actually, I've found that a lot of the "washed out" look comes from using backlight bleeding and the pixel effects. I wouldn't have expected the latter to have any influence on colors, but it does. Turning off pixel effects gives more vibrant, more saturated colors with better contrast. Too bad, since I really like the pixel effect, but I prefer more vibrant colors with better contrast so it's pixel effects off for me for now.

Does it also happen when creating a new airframe?

Too bad. Thanks anyway.

Hi, ever since I got into X-Plane and the Challenger 650 starting with X-Plane 12.05, I have a zebra shadow issue with the buttons: no big deal, but is there any way to fix that? (currently on X-Plane 12.07, latest nVidia driver). Particularly strange as all shadows other than for the push buttons seem to be fine. I use an nVidia graphics card.

Not that it helps in this case, but just as feedback, I updated X-Plane 12 from 12.05 to 12.06 when X-Plane prompted me for the update a couple of days ago, and all my flights in the CL650 worked fine ever since, just as before the update.

I understand. Still, I would have appreciated a little less "old 727 freighter" feel in the cockpit. But hey, the CL650 is my favorite in any case, grubby or not.

Well, my assumption about this CTD somehow being connected to using VNAV proved wrong. I got the very same CTD with exactly the same backtrace and error message in a situation that did not involve VNAV usage. Nevertheless, the crash seems to indicate some issue with altitude calculations, which is no surprise since the TOD and other data need to be recalculated on flight plan change. I remember having deleted an altitude constraint at some fix in the arrival procedure before, which left the fix without any calculated altitude, just with a "---" displayed in the FMS where the altitude would be displayed otherwise. Might that have upset the calculation?

Ah, ok, it worked at BGBW (Nasarsuaq airport in Greenland). It also works when I manually create icing weather conditions at an airport. So it does check for actual icing conditions? And if there are none, the deicing guys will just do nothing? Nice that they don't tell me in that case

Hi, I tried to use the 136.925 frequency from the cockpit to call for decing, in order to test this and prepare for the upcoming colder season. The menu comes up, I can select decice or deice/anti-ice, but then nothing happens. There is no truck coming, or anything else happening that might indicate a decicing/anti-icing process. Tried on several different airports, but no luck so far. Sure, currently we don't need decing/anti-icing since it is summer and temps are high. Is this checked somehow, and this will only work in true icing conditions? What's the deal here? What are the prerequisites for this to work? I am parked normally at the airport, with all engines running and ready to go.

Observed that behavior occasionally, too. Nice tip. Will try, thanks!

I've been observing the behavior now for many, many flights after my initial post here, and after I've adjusted the way I set up my flight plans. I haven't run into the issue of a missing auto-tune and NAV-to-NAV transfer since. It appears that the system is prone to not do the tune and transfer properly if e. g. the first fix of a vectored approach comes directly after an en-route waypoint. If a discontinuity is left after last enroute waypoint and the first approach fix, tuning has never failed for me. Same if a non-vectored approach comes directly after an arrival procedure without discontinuity. So it's most likely me not having done things properly in the beginning.

So I observed already. I understand they're a small team, but nonetheless. Lots of non-US X-Plane pilots around, they should definitely broaden their view a little.

Oh, ok. I didn't know that X-Plane itself is limiting here. No big deal though, particulary as X-Plane "forces" the NDB to 307.0 so that it can be received nonetheless. Quite unlikely that we'll encounter two nearby NDBs with frequencies only differing in the decimal region so that this truncation would become an issue, even more so with the ongoing discontinuation of NDB stations in many parts of the world. Still, If I ever find time, I'll let the X-Plane guys know. Thanks.

Hi, the accepted NDB frequencies, dialed in via FMS as well as via the radio controls on the CCP, seem to be without digits after the decimal point. While I can dial in e. g. 307.5, it will always snap back to 307.0 Is this intended? There are still NDBs around that require this, e. g. the "PA" NDB on the ILS 24R approach in LEPA, which is on frequency 307.5, so not every NDB is "XXX.0". Or am I missing something? Both FMS and Radio section on the MFDs show a digit after the decimal point for NDB frequencies, but it will always be 0.

Ok, I played around with this a bit. The box indeed calculates a veeeeery long and shallow climb up to FL410 to eventually reach that level as soon as it is attainable based on the predicted GW with the expected fuel burn-off. In my extreme test case, FL410 was basically reached shortly before TOD on a transatlantic route. The FMS does complain if a too high altitude is put in too early, which is what I had expected: I got how this works now. Thanks!

Good question. A recent search of the net indicates that Challenger Collins FMS-6200 manuals seem to remain elusive for us simmers.

The procedure starts with putting the final flight level (let’s say FL410) into the FMS. With fuel quantity and loadout set for a long flight, I would have expected the FMS to initially complain at that stage during preparation where it does not have the hold-down constraints yet, telling me that FL410 doesn‘t work. Any warning would then go away only after the initial climb constraint to a lower flight level is established in the FMS. Maybe I got it wrong?

I have been watching Victory AJs video on the step climb topic. One point I‘ve been asking myself if you put the final flight level into the FMS and work with hold-down constraints, won‘t the box give you an „unable crz alt“ or some similar message? It appears that the FMS does not check the max possible FL for the given weight?

While the HS650 textures certainly are superb and lively, I personally find the level of wear and tear modelled in the HS cockpit a bit over the top. The cockpit looks more like that of a beaten, old early-MSN 605 with a PL21 Advanced and SGWAIS upgrade slapped in, rather than that of a genuine 650 with at most 8 years under its belt. If I recollect correctly, the 650 is available since 2015? Anyway, worn or new, this bird is so addictive in X-Plane.

From some crosswind situation Challenger videos, it appears they are not significantly banking left and right particularly on takeoff. So either I just still suck at keeping wings level in such conditions, or the real Challenger‘s behavior is more stable.

Hi, mostly a question to the real-world Challenger drivers. The HS650 shows quite a strong roll tendency when applying rudder; much more than I am used to from other sim aircraft, and also quite different from the crates I used to fly in real life. This makes for some interesting challenges (yeah, pun) when de-crabbing on landing or straightening out crossed controls after liftoff in crosswind conditions. While I can manage it alright, it surely results in some rolling since rudder and aileron input would have to be perfectly in sync to prevent this. Not easy, particularly with flightsim-quality hardware. How does the "real" Challenger behave in that regard?

Hi, I had some more of these crashes, now also when collapsing waypoints in a route in the FMC when under VNAV. It seems that there is an issue under certain circumstances when 1. VNAV is active 2. Waypoints are skipped or deleted, as it happens in a DIRECT-TO, or by just removing/skipping them in the FMC. For the latter, I had a route segment with fixes A-B-C-D-E ahead of me, and I LSK'ed E to come right after A, so that the resulting route would be just A-E. This crashed under VNAV, but works just fine after I reloaded and did the same without VNAV enabled. For now, I shall not use VNAV except when not planning to modify the route, and use V/S with the VNAV advisory only instead.

Same with me. As written before, I usually fly with a fixed config that is accommodated by one trim setting. However, I found the tool useful to figure out where to move the trim with extreme payloads or fuel loads.