I am having three major problems with the 737NG. First, my speedbrakes wont deploy on landing. If I arm them using the lever on the throttle, the "speed brakes" armed light doesn't even go on. If I arm them using a key stroke, the light goes on, but they still don't deploy on landing. Is anyone else having this problem?Second, the GPWS seems way to sensitive. I get the "terrain warning" as soon as I go below 2500 feet and I dont have the gear down, and I get the "Pull Up" warning if im descending more than 100O fpm under 2500 feet. I hoped this will be addressed in the patch.Third, if I am flying the approach manually, and I dont have the "autothrottle armed" switch off, the speed hold ocassionaly will turn itself on, raising the throttles, and messing up my approach. The autothrottles should stay armed incase a goaround is necessary.Let me know if anyone is experiencing similar problems.

Hi there,the speed brakes arm and deploy without problems for me, as long as I use the keystroke to arm them - I have difficulty with mouse/lever on nearly all the planes I use, not just PMDG.>I get the "terrain warning" as soon as I go below 2500 feet and I dont have the gear down, and I get the "Pull Up" warning if im descending more than 100O fpm under 2500 feet.:).>if I am flying the approach manually, and I dont have the "autothrottle armed" switch off, the speed hold ocassionaly will turn itself on, raising the throttles, and messing up my approachhttp://hifi.avsim.net/activesky/images/wxrebeta.jpg

Autospoiler Question:Make sure your throttles are at idle when your main gears touch down. When I say idle, i dont mean that your throttle is set to idle and your engines are powering down to reach it, i mean that your throttle is at idle, and the engines are already running at that power setting. I believe this is FS logic with the Autospoilers but i am not 100% sure, feel free to correct me if I am wrong.GPWS Question: (Gear Warning)I think when it is modeled in the later versions there are override switches for the Gear that silence that warning if you know you are going to drop them later. be warned though, that means you can risk touchdwn with your gear up if you forget the handle.(if im not mistaken)(Sink Rate)Yes, that is part of the GPWS when you are below 2500 feet AGL and are dropping over 1000 fpm, you will make the system go off like crazy. THis is because when you are descending at 1000fpm and are below 2500 feet, the most time you have to avoid contact with the ground is 2.5 mins, most of the time it is far lesss. This helps avoid a crash. Its annyoing, but safe. Autothrottle Question:I belive pilots do use the autothrottle on landing to control speed, however some do not. I think you should deselect a speed mode, disengage autothrottle, and then re-arm it. I think that would "reset" the system, and have it not kick in when you're landing. However, it could be the alpha protection that was mentioned earlier.

I don't think the GPWS system is modelled entirely right, although I must say the entire system is rather complicated. In my Lufthansa manual there are diagrams of the relationship between radio altitude and descent rate for the various warnings to go off. At 2,500 feet there are only two kinds of alert that are armed and that is for sink rate and for execessive terrain closure rate. However, to actually trigger them you have descend like a brick, in the region of 5,000 fpm or more! And if you're doing say 2,000 fpm minute, the descent rate warning won't go off until you're well below 1,000 feet. In other words, the PMDG GPWS is simply too sensitive.Leo BakkerPS. I could NOT find this information in the official Boeing manual, which I think is odd. It IS included in the PS1 manual! So some desktop pilots are better informed than the real life ones!

As an additional information, you may find the diagrams in this user's manual interesting for the GPWS:http://www.reality-xp.com/products/jl4-manual/index.htmHope this helps!Jean-Luc

"Second, the GPWS seems way to sensitive. I get the "terrain warning" as soon as I go below 2500 feet and I dont have the gear down, and I get the "Pull Up" warning if im descending more than 100O fpm under 2500 feet. I hoped this will be addressed in the patch."Dear (Please insert name here).We were told last week that this would be looked into ;-) For info, the PMDG GPWS seems to be a bit of a hybrid system. You get warnings for "Enhanced" GPWS, but, so far, I haven't seen any of the pop-up ND terrain displays associated with this. Enhanced GPWS gives the pilots a lookahead function. If the pilots were unknowingly flying into a 1000' high vertical walled mountain sitting in the middle of a flat stretch of land or in water, the old GPWS would have happily allowed the pilots to fly into it. No so with the Enhanced System. When you hear the CAUTION TERRAIN aural, this is the Enhanced system.If you are getting a PULL UP aural, you have to be pretty low to the ground and be descending at a very high rate. 1500' a minute is the minimum descent rate for you to get a PULL UP... but you would have be only 10 feet off the ground to get this! Above this, there is (roughly) a sliding scale.... At 2450' above the ground, you would have to be descending at over 7000fpm to generate this specific aural. In many cases, however, you should get a SINK RATE aural a little further in advance.GPWS aurals are triggered by a variety of things. To analyse each warning, you have to look at the nature of the terrain (is it uneven, rising, falling), your descent rate (on your IVSI), your Radio Altitude, your aircraft configuration (flaps/gear), whether you are flying towards or away from an airport, etc. A snapshot of your cockpit during this event would be helpful in an analysis of the situation.Hope this helps.Cheers.Ian.

>What was your weight/airspeed/flap position? It may have been>Alpha protection kicking in, if you dropped below the safe>minimum.I don't think Boeing aircraft have that - thought that was Airbus's thing...Ryan

Hi Ryan,>I don't think Boeing aircraft have that - thought that was Airbus's thing...http://hifi.avsim.net/activesky/images/wxrebeta.jpg

"I don't think Boeing aircraft have that - thought that was Airbus's thing..."An option, perhaps? There seems to be no mention of an alpha floor in our 737-800 Maintenance Manual... at least not in the A/T Chapter.On the other hand, in our 747-400 AOM, there's a mention of Alpha protection through the throttle for all modes except V/S. Some A/P modes also have speed protection through elevators (VNAV SPD, FLCH SPD and TO/GA).Cheers.Ian.

I can't seem to open the file, Jean-Luc.Is anyone else having difficulties?ThanksCheers.Ian.

Hi Ian,try right-clicking on 'Download PDF manual: Jet Line 4', then select 'save as', save to the location of choice and it should open (providing you have either Acrobat or Acrobat Reader installed).Cheers,Gosta.http://hifi.avsim.net/activesky/images/wxrebeta.jpg

Hi Ian,In the Boeing AOM several reversion modes are mentioned, one of them is minimum speed. In my Lufthansa manual more or less the same description is given, but here it's called maximum angle of attack reversion. Maybe it's just a matter of terminology?In the Lufthansa manual the description is quite detailed. Some highlights:- 1.3 Stall speed is referred to as minimum or alpha floor speed. It will be the same as Vref at forward CG, as the CG moves aft the alpha floor speeds will be lower than Vref- A/T will display the underspeed symbol as it's getting close to the minimum speed, in proportion to the deceleration. It will control speed to maintain minimum speed and will display the underspeed symbol until the actual speed is 5 kts over the minimum speed. With both A/T and AFDS capable of reversion, A/T will control first.- AFDS reversion mode works in V/S, VNAV SPD or LVL CHG, but is inhibited when in ALT acq, capture or hold or after G/S capture. Detection occurs at minimum speed if A/T switch is off, or 5 kts below when A/T in arm to reduce conflict with the A/T. When AFDS reversion takes over, it reverts to LVL CHG, the underspeed symbol will become visible at this time and the speed display will show CAS, or last valid FMC target airspeed when coming out of VNAV SPD. It will command minimum speed + 5 kts, the alpha flag will remain in view, until the actual airspeed gets 15 kts above minimum speed. For that to happen you have to set the MCP speed command to a higher speed, of course.I should mention that the Lufthansa manual is for the 3/4/5. However, I very much doubt if there would be any major differences for the NG. I understand they have the same AFDS and A/T systemLeo Bakker

They do.The AFDS will revert to LVLCHG at 1.3Vs + 5 as soon as current IAS becomes lower than safe. That does not mean that the plane will start climbing immediately by the way (in marginal situations it might induce deep stall and you are in big trouble then).The AT system (when armed) will command "SPEED" when (a) capturing glideslope (GS goes from armed to active),(:( active mode becomes ALT ACQ adn c) ALT HOLD button is pressed. Deselect speed to go to no active mode. This is however BAD practice. In real life if you wish to control the throttles manually during approach (a) you reset AT arm switch to off (:( for good measure I remember several pilots *also* clicking on the throttle lever mounted disarm buttons (on the side of the level handle) more than a couple of times (!!!) to make absolutely sure that AT is dead :-)Cheers,Vangelis=========================================== E. M. Vaos Precision Manuals Development Group www.precisionmanuals.com===========================================

Hi jmg225 !I have the same problem with the "SPEED BRAKE ARMED LIGHT", and with "STAB OUT OF TRIM" light too, it's nice to know that i'm not alone with this problem...The "SPEED BRAKE ARMED LIGHT" just goes green if i armed the speed brake using the "shift + ;" keys...I never had same problem with other add-on...HELP US PMDG !