Well,After a few thousand hours behind the glass in the PIC, after extensive training following the Non Normal Checklists, working on all the procedures outlined in Mike Ray's emergency section, and a complete re-read of the panel and FMC manuals - I am finally ready to take her to the next step - failures enabled.What?!? Some might sit in disbelief that all this time I had no failures enabled. It was enough for me to just fly the bird, follow the procedures, and put her down on the numbers with all of VATSIM watching - I caused enough of my own failures without the system working against me. Now I am ready. In fact, I had my first one last night in the skies between LAX and SFO when we had a little duct leak at FL310. No big deal, and following the checklist got it all "patched up" until the crew at SFO could deal with it.The question is - What is the best setting for the random failures in FS2002? Frequency? Severity?I don't want to be dealing with a massive engine fire or a complete loss of hydraulics every time I step in the aircraft, I just want the possibility that anything could happen, every time I step in the bird. Currently set it to 2 failures/month with the sliders maxed. Would love to hear how everyone else has theirs set.On a side note - someone mentioned to me about this FSMAINTENANCE software, does anyone know much about it, or if it works with the PIC767?Cheers and looking forward to your responses on this.Ian Elchitz CYWG

I followed your lead and set mine up for 4 X a month, random failures, all failures enabled -EXCEPT Flight Control Failures are set to None-. I flew for 4 hours last night, no failures yet. There was a post a long time back that mentions one should leave at least one failure item set to "OFF" due to a wee buglet in the program.No doubt I will be chasing bad weather in Boston and lose the ILS or something equally annoying...but hey, that's what random is all about...random, chaos.....where did I put those non-normal checks...dust 'em off.Rob.Edit - my use of the word "one" reminds me of an obscure Monty Python sketch...the "One's one" sketch."...one wonders how one copes with oneself...one has never felt so much at one with oneself when one is with one. ...One wonders if one has ever known one to win one. One loves one."NUTS!

Hi Ian>>>procedures outlined in Mike Ray's emergency sectionCould you elaborate pls? Where can I find this?

It's a book.

Muppet,http://www.utem.comIf you need any reviews on the book search the forum - for the most part everyone who owns it thinks it is money well spent.(I know I feel that way)Ian Elchitz CYWG

>I followed your lead and set mine up for 4 X a month, random >failures, all failures enabled -EXCEPT Flight Control >Failures are set to None-.Disabling the flight control failures seems like a good idea: I once flew with the possibility of flight control failure enabled, and suddenly I lost all alierons. Just like that - there were no other problems. That's obviously not very realistic. (I was able to fly to an airport and land using only rudder though.)>There was a post a long time back that mentions one should >leave at least one failure item set to "OFF" due to a wee >buglet in the program.You don't have to put it to Off; "Minor failures enabled" will do the trick. As long as not all sliders are set to Full it will work without problems. (I usually leave the navigation failures on "Minor" since I'm usually to lazy to keep myself updated on where I am and plot it to charts etc.)Martin767 fetishistIt's a lot like life and that's what's appealing

Now your living, the enabled failures do add a whole new demension to PIC. I have never tried FSMAINTENANCE but I think Stiffy has been using it.

I know I am late on this thread but...I am going to start flying with failures enabled but I am confused about something.How does the timer work? What if I load the same situation file every time? Does the timer start again? Or does the timer run independent of the situation file so as to count every time you fly with the PIC panel?Also, why is my option for "reset timer" not available?Any help would be appreciated!Damon

Damon, I have tried to get a straight answer for quite a long time. I wrote a lengthy post a number months ago putting the whole "probability" issue in context. Unfortunately I got no takers from my post and it quickly fell deep into the archives.Anyway, I think there may be some bugs in the failures program - although the rest of the model is practically flawless, as we all know. One problem I have is after I set the sliders and enable random failures it does not stay that way after the flight. The next time I load it its all back to default (i.e. not set). I have heard some say just save the flight to keep the "timer" going. Problem is when I do this I would not be loading the flight in current conditions, such as date, time so forth. I guess I can always set this with the loaded plane but I should not have to do that.Oh well there are other issues that I have with failure system - but I suspect this thread will fall into archive soon so I just as soon let it go.Regards,WS

I saw your thread in the archives and hoped that someone would take the bait :-(I guess it would be possible to load the flight and then change the date and time so that it is current. However, if you save the flight with the failures at say, day 1, and then re-load the flight ten days later, are you now at day 1 (having re-set the day), day 2 (since you are actually flying the second day) or day 10 (system time?...don't know how this would be possible).I don't really care as long as I get some failures once in a while and I would hate to have to re-set the failures every time, then you might as well select failures in hours, rather than days or months.Damonp.s. does your "re-set timer" selection show up or is it blacked out?

Re-set timer? Not sure what it is. I should mention that I just tried setting at, say, 3 per mos. Then I reset the flight and checked. Again the Random Failures were now unchecked. It looks as if I have to save the flight. Of course we still have all the questions mentioned above. It may seem trivial to some but when you get down to it, it makes a BIG diff in terms of probability of failures, and that again is a big aspect of PIC.Regards, WS (KEWR)

In the pulldown menu under "Failures" it says this on my menu:DefineRepairRe-set timerHowever, the "re-set timer" option is grayed out.Damon