Hi to all the pilots and technicans,about one year ago I posted a thread concerning the random failure trigger ratio of the MD-11's failure system: http://forums1.avsim.net/index.php?showtop...&hl=failure.Thanks god currently I have some time again to fly the MD-11 again. Everything runs smooth and it's an absolutely joy to drive this baby. But there's still to old problem of to many failures per flight :( .This week I made the first flight since one year: MD-11F KLGB to KPIA. Enroute my 3-2-NRMP gave up. Arriving the Ramp at KPIA my APU didn't come up: APU STARTER FAULT.Currently I'm flying from KPAE to BGSF. At about 1700Z my HYD 2 reservoir was gone (HYD 2 FAULT, both pumps off AP1 inop).I think the possibility to get failures you have to react on is one of the quality cores of PMDG's MD-11 (besides the system modelling). But a ratio of 1 failure per 10 hours is much to much. Maybe it was an accident that three failures occured in that short time. Will see what happens next (still 1271 nm to go).I would like to know in which way the others use the system failures. Just for system training in special situations? Or do you have it switched off on long cruises?So here's again my suggestion couldn't we get that on a event per 100 or 1000 hr ratio? I've discussed that in the old thread with Dan Brown and he gave some logical arguments. Anyway I would like to see any kind of solution for this. Maybe there's a possibility to change this manual in any file or so? It would be a big step for me towards reality.Thanks in advanceDenis

Eversince I started using the random failure system I started getting problems early on a flight even while doing the predeparture checks on the ramp. I think too, that the 1 fault per 10 hours is a bit pushy. As well the faults (while on the ramp) were always related to the air packs fault. Anyway at least we have the options to break things on a random basis which is good for training Abnormal Procedures. I can't help but wonder how random is actually the random failures trigger?...

It's been a long time since I've flown the PMDG MD-11, so I don't have any recent experience using the failure module. But I think when using the random failure generator, you're able to limit the number of total failures on a per-flight basis, independant of the failure rate. If I remember correctly, you can set both the rate and the limit for each of the failure categories (nuisance, severe, etc..).I don't have any real-world knowledge of MD-11 reliability, but I can say for sure that on many other airframes (J41, CRJ-200/700, A319, DC-10), it's about even odds that you depart with at least SOMETHING on the MEL list. So I don't think a 1-in-10 failure rate is necessarily unrealistic, but I agree that that rate would be excessive if we're talking about major in-flight problems like hydraulic failures, fuel leaks, and engine fires.I guess to put it in perspective, if an airline runs 1000 flights a day with an average flight time of 1 hour each, we might have an emergency once week. Thats one major failure per 7,000 flight hours, and easily 90% of those are merely indication problems only. On the other hand, on a given day I might dispatch 50 or 60 flights. About half of which will have at least 1 item MEL'd, and of those, about 10 flights will have 2 or 3 items deferred. Finally, about 1 or 2 flights will have as many as 6 or 7 deferrals. Common items are packs, apu's, refueling panels, fuel quantity systems, nav lights, GPS, ACARS, and such. Slightly less common, might be a CSD/IDG, autopilot, FMS, radar, wing or engine anti-ice systems. And relatively infrequently, something like a gear-down ferry, or unpressurized flight. These are all things that we actually leave the gate already KNOWING they don't work.