PMDG737 - new world altitude record

[Ray Proudfoot 9,074]

All,I left this flight with the aircraft levelled off at FL350, M0.82 enroute from Stockholm (ESSA) to Manchester (EGCC).When I returned an hour later I found the aircraft had achieved something quite extraordinary. I have absolutely no idea why this should have happened. LNav and VNav were engaged and the flight plan in the FMC was entirely logical. Perhaps the gremlins were smuggled on board?http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/38026.jpghttp://forums.avsim.net/user_files/38027.jpghttp://forums.avsim.net/user_files/38028.jpgShould the PMDG737-800 be able to stay in the air at this altitude - 23,000ft higher than Concorde? What is keeping it up?Cheers,

[Guest puppypoo]

RayIt looks to me that you got some really off the wall baro data from whatever weather you are useing.Bill

[ahaka 0]

Seems like you were actually flying 737-700 Orbiter. :)Good luck flying the re-entry! ;)

[Ray Proudfoot 9,074]

Bill,I was using FS2004 15 minute download weather. Still wouldn't explain why the altitude wasn't adhered to whatever the winds/pressure/temp.Ah well, put it down as a one-off.Cheers,

[Ray Proudfoot 9,074]

Antti,Yes, it felt like I was in orbit. I chickened out of the rest of the flight as fuel was very low. The FMC would have had a heart attack trying to meet those waypoint altitudes!Cheers,

[Guest amerton]

Ray,Ahhhh... This could only have happened to you ;-)Honestly... no clue... Do you have more details ??? anthonyAnthony MertonPrecision Manuals Developmenthttp://www.precisionmanuals.com

[Guest Daniel Pimentel]

Hey:MS RW weather does some weird stuff to the plane... I had one where the wind was so strong it blew me up at 2900fpm on final approach (300ft). So I don't think there's anything wrong with the aircraft, Anthony. :)DP

[gosta 0]

Hi Ray,looks like you had some seriously warped weather there - IAS of 345, Mach .82 and a ground speed of 80? I'd say your actual altitude should have been somewhere around 21,000ft, judging from the airspeed. (Which would also explain why you were climbing). I found that outside the US, the MS weather is more or less unusable, even in the US it's often far from accurate.Cheers,Gosta.http://hifi.avsim.net/activesky/images/wxrebeta.jpg

[Guest MarkC]

Hi Ray,Just a shot in the dark (don't have this product yet, wating for the -800 to come out before i purchase). I notice on your pfd that your showing 345kias but below the speedtape it shows your gs as 80kts. Which would mean you had to have encountered one heck of a headwind. Regards,Mark CKRNOAppears Gosta beat me too the punch :)

[Ray Proudfoot 9,074]

Hi Gosta,Quite what happened whilst I way away from the PC is a total mystery to me. I've often left long overnight trans-Atlantic flights and returned to find everything in order.I wish I had taken a screenshot of WeatherSet2 (by Pete Dowson) which would have shown the total weather picture. I'll refly this route again today but this time I'll stay in front of the machine (whilst reading the Sunday papers) and monitor it carefully.What really confused me was the fact that this aircraft had long passed its maximum altitude but was still climbing at a healthy 2,400fpm. It must have been doing this for several minutes even though the overspeed warning was on. I've now turned on "crash detection" which was tuned off on this particular flight.<>I've not found that to be the case. In fact I prefer FS9's 15-minute weather to FSMeteo's. Most of my flying is in Europe but I also do a fair bit in the US.Cheers,

[Ray Proudfoot 9,074]

Hi Anthony,Sorry, I didn't post any weather details which may have helped. I'm going to refly it again this morning. What specifically would you like me to record?I like to keep you on your toes! ;-)Cheers,

[Ray Proudfoot 9,074]

Hi Mark,I didn't make a note of the headwind but in that part of the world (eastern North Sea) there was no severe weather yesterday. I'm reflying it again today so watch this space.Cheers,

[Guest Ian_Riddell]

Ray... I would get the engineers to check the tyres... Someone may have serviced them with helium instead of nitrogen ;-)Cheers.Ian.P.S. Or if your voice has suddenly gone squeaky... I would check get them to check the crew oxygen, also ;-)

[Ray Proudfoot 9,074]

Hi Ian,:-lol A lighter moment is much needed.This flight is turning into a nightmare. I tried it again this morning and levelled off at FL350. So far, so good. I then settled down to read the Sunday newspaper.About 30 minutes later and without warning both engines stopped! Arrgghh! I was able to restart them and after a bit of a telling-off from my Radar Contact controller climbed back up to FL350 and my attention turned back to the newspaper.About 45 minutes later I had to hang out the washing so left the room for about 10 minutes. On my return I was horrified to see the Microsoft "application has encountered an error" box. I have absolutely no idea what caused the fatal error. At that point I scrapped the flight.I did have other software running - Radar Contact, FS FlightTracker, FS RealTime and ZoneAlarm (firewall). I have flown a few flights with these programs running both with the PMDG737 and other aircraft without problem. I'm beginning to think this route is cursed but I won't be beaten by it. I'll try again during the coming week and see if I can succesfully complete it.One question to PMDG... On two occasions now with FS9 I have suffered an engine failure - either one or both. My realism settings do not have any kind of failure set. Any idea what could be causing these and has anyone else suffered them?Cheers,

[Hollywood 1]

i noticed something similar.i experience to weird situationsituation 1: at takeoff a 400 ft above ground i enable the autopilot with LNAV/VNAV. the 737 begins to move up/down and the speed inmcreases/decreses randomly, i can't climb, finally it ends up in a stall.usually this is releated to aircraft.cfg imbalance. so i decided to verify if it panel related of aircraft related, i decided to load the 737-800 from FFX using the PMDG panel. same behaviour. i tested the 737-600 and same behaviour. so i came to the conclusion it must be something else. i disabled all external weather tools flighttracker. the problem persisted. finally i deleted the PMDG installation and installed from scratch. the problem was gone.situation 2: cruisng at FL in CRZ mode, QNH changes by FSMeteo, now happens that the speed needle goes above the limit and VNAV is disconnected by "overspeed". This is automatically performed by the aircraft. after such a disconnect, i cannot set the MCP speed again. it won't obey the manual commands FMC says M.755 i'll try to change to M.78 which would be pretty normal at FL350. no way. it will either increase to M.82 or below at M.755. when engaging the VNAV once i start descent, reminded by FMC "reset MCP alt" doing this VNAV and LNAV enable the aircraft will not obey this command.haven't been able to figure out why this is. it does happen. If i don't get an overspeed disconnect VNAV will work perfect even for descent. cheers