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Guest LAND3

PMDG 744 functions not covered in manual?

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Guest LAND3

Today when I was flying the 744 into the ocean using V/Sthe radio altitude thingamobob turned into a strange spike wheelwith the radio altitude displayed in the center.Take a look:http://img299.imageshack.us/img299/5350/untitledro2.pngThis function was not mentioned in the large .pdf manuals that came with the PMDG 744. Kudos to PMDG for fidelity, so I'm just wondering if this isn't an isolated case, then are there other real world Boeing 747-400 functions that have been modeled in the PMDG 744 thatare not mentioned in the manuals? If so what are they and how can I duplicate them/ ie get into a predicament where they show up?Thanks,David

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Guest nicam

So the you flew the bird into the ocean?Michael

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Guest LAND3

I remember on Mission Impossible II in the beginning of the moviethese thugs who had hijacked a 747-400 escaped by parachuting and before they left they set the V/S to -3000 or something. And then it hit the Himalaya mountains and blew up. But the cockpit of the 747-400 in the MiII movie looked NOTHING like how the 747-400 flightdeck really looks in real life...Also in Superman Returns movie when the airplane is crashing down to earth the aural warning isn't what the real GPWS would have said...Instead of PULL UP, DON"T SINK, SINK RATE, TERRAIN, or something like that it said something real cheesy but I can't remember what...MiII and Superman Returns were both million dollar budget movies so one would think they would get the basic details right? --------Also, in REAL LIFE I was informed by a pilot friend of mine who used to fly for Air China that one time there was this 747-400 Air China flight (not his, he only heard about it too) where it was one of the stewardess birthday and both the Captain and First Officer(s) had left the cockpit and flight deck and locked the doors behind them went to the 'back' to celebrate. While they were celebrating one of the engines died/went out and the Captain and F/O wasn't aware of it happening. They had set the autopilot to cruise at a specific speed/altitudebut when the engines died they were away from the cockpit and the plane had to pitch up more and more to hold and eventually went into a stall. By the time they rushed into the cockpit the 747 had lost so much altitude from the stall and was descending so fast that they had to do a 4-g pull up maneuver to recover the airplane. And then a engine ripped out of the wings or something like that...Anyways, my point is, when I try that same scenario in PMDG 744 the PMDG airplane is too smart, it won't let me stall!!! I repeat the same thing they did and set a engine dieoff and AP tries to hold altitude and/or spd and when it finally can't then it auto switches modes to prevent from stalling....So whats the deal here? Did PMDG model a 'newer' version of the 747-400 that came before the Air China incident or is this functionality added-in to help us simmers from silly mistakes??

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In studying all of my air crash investigation books and online databases, I can't find that specific incident.I did, however find an Air China account where something similar had happened, but all the crew was in the cockpit. The starboard outer engine had apparently suffered a flameout and the engineer was attempting to restart it while the pilot descended to a lower alititude. The pilot had only disengaged the vertical navigation part of the MCP, so the aircraft was still attempting to follow the INS inputs. This resulted in a sharp yaw, because of the asymmetric thrust. The rudder was not being controlled by the autopilot, so it attempted to correct using ailerons alone, which worsened the condition and the aircraft continued to roll. They descended through clouds so the pilot became disoriented. The aircraft rolled through 360* and the other three engines flamed out. The g-forces were so great that it was difficult for the pilots to adjust (states between 4.8-5.1g). This bent the wings up 2-3" more than normal permanently, cracked several trailing edge points of the wing and snapped off parts of the tailplane. During this whole event the speed varied between 54kts and well over the designated maximums. They eventually landed in San Fran (SFO).The listed cause is the pilot's obsession with the engine failure, instead of first flying the aircraft, resulting in the decreased airspeed. He should have disconnected the autopilot completely to fly the aircraft manually while the rest of the crew dealt with the problem.Seems as if your friend has some of the story mixed in with some imbellishments. I found this account in "Air Accident Investigation - New Edition" by David Owen.The mention of the flight engineer shows that the model of 747 being flown was not the -400, which is the model PMDG has simulated.Regards,Kyle


Kyle Rodgers

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"So whats the deal here? Did PMDG model a 'newer' version of the 747-400 that came before the Air China incident or is this functionality added-in to help us simmers from silly mistakes??"The behaviour of the real aircraft is still the same as the Air China 744 (It's mentioned in our RW AOM). In cruise, you will get into trouble. It sounds like PMDG is going easy on simmers ;)Cheers.Q>

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>I remember on Mission Impossible II in the beginning of the>movie>these thugs who had hijacked a 747-400 escaped by parachuting>and before they left they set the V/S to -3000 or something.>And then it hit the Himalaya mountains and blew up. But the>cockpit of the 747-400 in the MiII movie looked NOTHING like>how the 747-400 flightdeck really looks in real life...>>Also in Superman Returns movie when the airplane is crashing>down to earth the aural warning isn't what the real GPWS would>have said...>Instead of PULL UP, DON"T SINK, SINK RATE, TERRAIN, or>something like that it said something real cheesy but I can't>remember what...>>>MiII and Superman Returns were both million dollar budget>movies so one would think they would get the basic details>right? I have yet to see a movie where they actually get the cockpit 100%right. If you watch Air Force One, they ATTEMPTED to model the -400 cockpit when AF1 is a -200 with a cockpit to match.Ryan GamurotLucky to live Hawai'ihttp://www.precisionmanuals.com/images/forum/supporter.jpg

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