Where do I begin?

[Guest Nick527]

Geofa Sorry the pics so huge, Jan here's the problem, although it shows the switches it does not explain in what order. and some of them are 3-position ones also! I don't know if this makes sense.I won't upload the one for v9xx, it'll probably annoy moderators pics this hugeThanks Nick

[rightseater 0]

Doesn't annoy us at all. The rules let you upload images up to 1024 X 768 and 200K. You're well within the rules.

[Guest Nick527]

Thanks. It wasn't the size of a billposter when I took it.See how much clearer the v9xx example is. Little or no way of getting the startup wrong. Compared to the one for the 7.50 I hope it's possible to see how I can't understand it.Nick

[Janov 2,383]

Hi Nick,you need two things to start the engines, AC-Power and Bleed-Air. Both are provided by the APU, usually. In a cold and dark cockpit, these would be the basic steps:Turn on the battery switch.Start the APUWhen it is running, connect its generator to both AC-Busses (the white two switches in the middle, toggle momentarily)Enable the APU-Bleed air (APU Bleed Air Valve)Turn on several AC-powered systems, i.e. fuel pumps, Elec Hyd.Pumps, IRS

[Guest Nick527]

Thanks JanThis isn't going to be as easy or as short as I'd thought. I'm going to take an hour to investigate xplane a bit and see if I can get a screenshot of the upper panel. That's where my problems start from. If we manage to resolve it, if nothing else, at least the answer will be up here for anyone else still struggling with an 'antique' version of xplane with an awkward plane."Start the APU" - this is the procedure that's a bit more than just flicking on switch"When it is running, connect its generator to both AC-Busses (the white two switches in the middle, toggle momentarily)" - Up or down? Can't remember if these are 2 or 3 way switches."Enable the APU-Bleed air (APU Bleed Air Valve)" - might need directions to this one"Turn on several AC-powered systems, i.e. fuel pumps, Elec Hyd.Pumps, IRS

[Guest Nick527]

Hi JanDidn't take as long as I thought - only got locked out of the pc twice. This a view of everything I get. I can scroll down and get all of the EICAS and lower centre panel, but there is nothing further to the rightI took the liberty of numbering the switches. Everything marked '9' is non-functional, I missed off everything at the extreme top, level with the red switch covers, if I go near that high, the main toolbar comes up (file, location, etc). I also forgot to number the two large knobs for engines, but they are functional.It is switch numbered 1 which is the 3-position switch, everything else is 2-position.Basically I've flicked switch 4 (beacon) and 5 (avionics). Nothing lit up unitl I flicked switch 1 from its up position to its middle. Everything lit up as you see here.I then flicked switch 8 to the side. A yellow light came on above it, and a few seconds later the green light came on shown to its right.XThis is as far as I get normally. The control levers are up (not shown in this view) but no matter what I do with switches 2 and 3, the engines spool up but do not fire. It is as if igniters are missing. So everything above X may be correct. Does this look familiar to you?Thinking of it, if I assume the apu is on by the green light next to it, in the video I saw the dial above 6 & 7 should have moved. Maybe apu is not on, even though green light is?ThanksNick6 = Nav Lights7 = Star/Stab (cannot read)PS I just had a good rummage on the web to see if I could find anything I'd missed. I found a picture tutorial on stevenair showing instruments clearly missing from my plane, and I also had a look at a couple of videos of the Wilco Feelthere (FS9?) 737 and it's the same scene. Mine seems to missing so many instruments and switches I'm lucky Stratmann left some wings on it. I'm beginning to think a Boeing engineer would take a look and claim We bin burgled.

[Guest Nick527]

From the standard sitting position view, pressing Down arrow on the keyboard shows the EICAS and throttle quadrant, and pressing the Up arrow gives you the view seen in the upper panel of the picture. I believe there should be another instrument panel above that, but either it was not written into the v7.50 737 or someone cut a lot of corners. Pressing the Up arrow twice does not scroll any higher than the view shown.Not good news, but hey hoNick

[Janov 2,383]

Hi Nick,looks like there is no battery switch, so to power the aircraft, just move switch 1 up, this will connect the AC-Ground power to both busses, then everything is powered.To start the APU just toggle switch 8 to "start". Once it is running, you should be able to connect the APU to the busses, use the 2 switches (both in the middle). These are actually 3-position in the real aircraft, springloaded to center position. One way connects the power, the other disconnects it.Now switch on the systems I mentioned, basically everything that shows an orange light is off, so toggle switches until amber lights extinguish (3 is fuel pumps, for example).I see no control for bleed-air, so I assume it is available once the APU is running. You should be able to crank the engines now, by moving the unnumbered switches in the center to "GRD". These will usually engage the starter. For a proper startup, the control levers should be down "cutoff" when you start cranking, and then be moved to "idle" when N2 at 25%.Otherwise you will get a "hot" start, with fuel igniting right away before enough airflow is in the engine.Switches 4-6 are usually lights, there is no "avionics" switch on real 737s, they are "on" whenever AC power is available.The dial above those switches is the APU exhaust temperature, it should go up when the APU is running. But if the engine is starting to crank when you move the startswitches, you should have bleed-air, so it should be running.It is difficult to judge how many systems are modeled correctly in this model, so some real-life procedures might not be working. Tell me if this helped, Jan

[Guest Nick527]

Hi JanNo luck I'm afraid. Did as you suggested, Button 1 up, altho this is already in the up position so moved it down once (it has a further down position too! don't kno what for)Toggled switch 8, apu green light came on after few seconds.Then moved the number 2 middle switches down, all amber lights went off. Didn't touch the outer number 2 switches at all, don't kno when to use them?Went for engine start knobs un-numbered, N2 rose to 25%, moved up the control levers, but situation was as usual - just slowly spools down.Didn't notice the apu dial move, so while you read this I'll give it another go.Often when I try to come out of xplane my windows screen freezes and I have to do a forced shutdown and reboot which takes a few minutes, so apologies if I'm not instant coming back. Although I use windows xp sp2, for some reason pressing the desktop button won't override xplane so if it doesn't close of its own accord I get the frozen screen,ThanksNick

[Guest Nick527]

Hi,Again no luck. I tried engine 1, same procedure as before button 1 down to on, button 8 on for apu start (apu dial does not move, may not be modeled), moved middle buttons 2 down so all amber lights off. Ran the No1 engine GRD knob, and when N2 got to 25% I moved the control lever up. Failed to start, and on releasing the knob N2 gauge went down.So I tried engine No2, same procedure as above, but with the control lever up from the start. Again no start.Running out of buttons!Nick

[Janov 2,383]

Hmm, running out of ideas then, too. One last thing, though, go and check in your menu which buttons are assigned to "fuel flow" - maybe you can coax the engines into life by hitting that button when/before its spinning up. Maybe the start levers are not tied into the actual fuel flow in this model. Otherwise I think you are doing everything right and they should start up...Good luck, jan

[Guest Nick527]

Hi JanSorry no luck with that either, today I'm using a mouse to get to the bottom of this so it's not a joystick with program buttons. There isn't anything tied in to fuel. I know in the joystick settings you can set attributes for a button to do things like that, but before today I've always used an r/c usb controller (with no buttons on it) so I'm certain it can't be that. The buttons in the joystick settings can only be assigned to a joystick with buttons, otherwise I think they are just ignored.In the meantime I just had a reply from Stratmann on the matter, his response was: I recently got a copy of your 737-800 for v7.63. I can not get it to start. Do you have an image similar to "x737overhead_ref" (overhead panel picture), for the 737-800 for v7.63?No, in the version for X-Plane 7 there is no such overhead-display. The problem is, most switch names are too small to read, and the manual is not much help. I need a picture guide as described above.I can not upgrade to v9, not so please do not recommend it. The old version is no longer supported by us but still under our copyright.Sorry, You'll have to use it as-is!At least it tells me there isn't an extra overhead panel missing. What it doesn't tell me is whether it is malfunctioning, or if it was sold as only part-working which I can't believe (it was payware back in 04/05) and most other v6.70/v7.10/v7.20s back then had aircraft able to be started manually. It's a shame, because flying without the manual start is like playing a car race which begins just 5 metres from the finish line so I will probably just delete it and xplane and move on. Now I've seen the videos for those Wilco 737s on fs2004, they do what the Stratmann 737 should do, only they were doing it 5 years ago! So I think I'm off to get fs2004 in the next few days and see how I get on with it.I appreciate all your help anyway, just a shame we couldn't achieve a miracles and make the unworkable work!Many kind regardsNickJust a brief thought before I hit the delete button on it - the four fuel levers I made sure were all switched on each time. However, buttons numbered 2 - we haven't used the two outer ones. The two inner ones you mentioned in the startup, do the outer ones figure anywhere in the startup you do?

[Janov 2,383]

Sorry to hear you couldnt get it to work. The white outer switches are used to connect the engines generators to the AC-Busses, so you will use them only after the engines are running.Good luck with FS9, it

[Guest Nick527]

Hi Jan Yes, thank you for all of your help. Just a pity we couldn't get it working, but at least no one can say we didn't try! I think it must have been one of Stratmann's early ones that wasn't quite finished perhaps.I've just been out and bought FS9, CLS 747-200 and 1st class "ultimate collection2" (A380,ww1 fighters, modern US fighters). When I'm not flying helicopters, this lot should keep my spare time full!ThanksNick

[Guest Nick527]

Hi Jan and allLOOKS LIKE YOU'RE STUCK WITH ME ON THE XPLANE FORUMS!I went, I bought, it didn't work. No surprises there. FS9, i'm referring to!In a nutshell, fs9 ran fine with no glitches like this frame rate issue most people mention. What I got was what in the music industry they call "latency". Input takes about 5 seconds to get to the screen. I turned absolutely everything down or off, mesh,scenery,clouds, other aircraft, the lot. Tried the sensitivity settings, made no difference at all. In the end I gave up. I was using a usb controller used for rc helicopters, which works fine on xplane, so I don't know if that was at fault. All I know is I'm not spending another