Hi all,Guess I have mis interpreted what I read in the tutorial - after departure and in the climb to planned altititude (say 15,000 ft) I will reduce the throttles to give 98.0% RPM. However at this setting, keeping other parameters including condition levers "in the green" (so as not to blow up the engines) means that the aircraft accelerates very slowly and only hits cruising speeds once levelled out at the assigned altitude. Should I be reducing to 98% only later when levelling off or perhaps first be accelerating to 235kt (?) and then reducing to 98% and at the same time engaging the IAS on the auto pilot which as I understand it will the adjust climb rate to maintain that speed?Also, on the FMS, I select an approach on the onbound to land a while before reaching the first fix in the approach. The FMS routing then shows me going from that waypoint to the destination (i.e. as per flight plan) and then all the way back to the waypoint to begin the appraoch procedure. To counter this I select to go direct to the first point in the appraoch procedure (which also happens to be the next leg in the flight plan, thus cutting out the superflous sectors. Is this the correct procedure? I did not notice this being mentioned in the tutorial.Thanks in advance.

Initial climbout is at V2+6 to V2+12 at takeoff power. Upon reaching acceleration altitude, the aircraft pitch is reduced to allow acceleration to about 170-180 KIAS and flaps are retracted; torque is adjusted so that EGT is just off the red line at 98% Prop RPM (easiest way is to reduce the EGT by about 50'c using the power levers, before reducing the condition levers to 98%). This configuration is retained for the rest of the climb, using pitch adjustments to maintain 180 KIAS (use IAS hold on the AP). If the aircraft is very heavy, you may be forced to use a higher RPM - indeed, being near MTOW may be one of the reasons you're finding the JS41 sluggish.Upon levelling off at cruise altitude, allow the aircraft to accelerate to approx 225 KIAS before reducing Prop RPM to 96% (don't forget to reduce torque first, otherwise you will exceed the VRL red line). Then you can further adjust torque to maintain a comfortable 230-245 KIAS cruise. There's more detail in the AOM on these sort of things, just search for "climb" in it.Hope this helps,Chris (廖傑英)

Gregg,Take care not to confuse the throttle and condition levers. One controls thrust and the other rpm's.

It's the condition levers that you pull back to 98%, not the throttle. (Throttle is actually controlling the prop pitch on the Garrett engines) Pull the condition back to 98% and then set the throttle to whatever keeps you below the EGT limit. Climb in IAS mode set for 170KIAS.

Thanks gentlemen. Armed with this info I shall try again.Perhaps I should have posted as a separate question, but onto the second part of my original post then on the FMS, can you confirm on this one also?Regards to all!

Thanks gentlemen. Armed with this info I shall try again.Perhaps I should have posted as a separate question, but onto the second part of my original post then on the FMS, can you confirm on this one also?Regards to all!

Select your STAR from the waypoint BEFORE your destination (or even the one before that). I strongly recommend you try the tutorial flight. A lot of your questions are answered there.

If performance is an issue, you're allowed to maintain 100% RPM for the entire flight if necessary. There's no rule that says you have to "cruise up" the engines, but a few tweaks to your profile will probably make that unnecessary.First, it's perfectly normal to climb all the way to cruise altitude at 170kt, so don't feel like you have to climb any faster than that. 170kt will give you good rate of climb even on warm days. If you're light, or it's below ISA, sometimes you can a climb rate that will keep ATC happy at 200kt or more (you shouldn't climb with less than 500fpm).Second, use the IAS mode of the FD to setup your climb. After retracting the flaps, accelerate smoothly to 170kt, then press the IAS button. The FD will command a pitch attitude to maintain 170kt, and the AP (if engaged) will maintain the proper climb speed. All you have to worry about is adjuting the POWER levers to keep EGT in check. Note: Be careful when using the pitch wheel to alter the desired IAS. The AP will do whatever it has to do in order to reach the selected speed. If you're at 230kt and you run the pitch wheel back to 170, you're going to go for a ride as the FD commands a 4,000fpm climb to bleed airspeed, followed by a "pushover" at the top. Similarly, if you're climbing at 170kt and you rapidly dial in 200kt, the airplane will likely begin a descent in order to gain airspeed. So be careful what you ask it to do.Third, if you do decide to pull the RPM back during the climb, the proper way to do it is to pull the POWER levers back until EGT is at the lowest white hash mark. Then, and only then can you pull the CONDITION levers back to 98%. Doing so will result in an increase of EGT back the the higher hash mark, which is where you want to keep it for climb and cruise. 96% RPM is the lower RPM limit in-flight, and I've never seen anyone set that value. Some airlines call for 97%, but we never used anything less than 98%.Some guys don't pull the RPM back until cruise, and depending on conditions (high ISA deviation, late/delayed flight, ATC request, etc) some don't pull them back at all.

If performance is an issue, you're allowed to maintain 100% RPM for the entire flight if necessary. There's no rule that says you have to "cruise up" the engines, but a few tweaks to your profile will probably make that unnecessary.First, it's perfectly normal to climb all the way to cruise altitude at 170kt, so don't feel like you have to climb any faster than that. 170kt will give you good rate of climb even on warm days. If you're light, or it's below ISA, sometimes you can a climb rate that will keep ATC happy at 200kt or more (you shouldn't climb with less than 500fpm).Second, use the IAS mode of the FD to setup your climb. After retracting the flaps, accelerate smoothly to 170kt, then press the IAS button. The FD will command a pitch attitude to maintain 170kt, and the AP (if engaged) will maintain the proper climb speed. All you have to worry about is adjuting the POWER levers to keep EGT in check. Note: Be careful when using the pitch wheel to alter the desired IAS. The AP will do whatever it has to do in order to reach the selected speed. If you're at 230kt and you run the pitch wheel back to 170, you're going to go for a ride as the FD commands a 4,000fpm climb to bleed airspeed, followed by a "pushover" at the top. Similarly, if you're climbing at 170kt and you rapidly dial in 200kt, the airplane will likely begin a descent in order to gain airspeed. So be careful what you ask it to do.Third, if you do decide to pull the RPM back during the climb, the proper way to do it is to pull the POWER levers back until EGT is at the lowest white hash mark. Then, and only then can you pull the CONDITION levers back to 98%. Doing so will result in an increase of EGT back the the higher hash mark, which is where you want to keep it for climb and cruise. 96% RPM is the lower RPM limit in-flight, and I've never seen anyone set that value. Some airlines call for 97%, but we never used anything less than 98%.Some guys don't pull the RPM back until cruise, and depending on conditions (high ISA deviation, late/delayed flight, ATC request, etc) some don't pull them back at all.

In a similar vein, can i ask about cruise settings? Once back at 98% and leveled out, what power setting is used. Often holding the EGT right to the line gets very close to VNe. Also the manual talks about fuel consumption planning and allowing for 1000lb/hr. To get that you need to come back nearer to 60%ish torque and a cruse speed of around 195 indicated. What would be a "normal" airline profile? If such a thing exists of course..)Ian Seager

Set to 96-98% Prop RPM via the condition levers for cruise (the PMDG AOM states 96% should be used), then set torque as required via the power levers to maintain your desired cruise speed (typically I use 200-230 KIAS. Vmo is 250 kias up to FL174 and Mmo .52 thereafter). Online sources state 295 KTAS as max, 285 KTAS as typical and 250 KTAS as long range cruise (Sorry I don't have any KIAS or mach figures, but you could use the 2% rule to roughly convert them - for every 1000 ft, IAS roughly 2% less than TAS. So for FL150: 15*0.02 gives you 0.3, and 285ktas/1.3 gives you 219 kias)If you want to conduct operations are per real life, they use a cruise torque chart, but thanks to FSX's poor modelling of turboprop engines these values are likely to be out by a few percent, and I've yet to see a copy of one. See also: http://forums1.avsim.net/index.php?showtopic=260552

Ian,Typically, power is set to the -10C hash mark on the EGT gauge (the one closest to the VRL limit), and the result is usually a pretty fast cruise...230KIAS or better. That the airspeed can get pretty close to Vne isn't much of a concern unless you're expecting turbulence. There's only a few instances where you'd want to purposely slow your cruise speed:1) ATC request2) You're early and inbound to the hub (if you arrive too early, your gate will be occupied and you'll have to sit in the penalty box)3) You "under-blocked" the last three legs, and you're trying to pad the current leg's block time for pay purposes.None of those really apply to the FS world, so there's no reason to be flying around at 195kt unless the wife bases your allowance on your FS logbook. ;)But seriously, I can only recall a handful of instances when the crew wasn't trying to max-perform the airplane. So feel free push it up.Oh, and I took a few minutes to transcribe the Cruise Torque Chart that I mentioned in the other linked thread. I didn't realize I had promised to do that...better late than never. Disclaimer: I copied the chart verbatim, and I have not tested the real numbers against the sim. It may be that the chart is unusable for FSX purposes, and I would advise against using any discrepancy between the chart and the PMDG airplane as an indicator of inaccuracy.

Many thanks for the excellent information, looks like I need to load fuel for a higher rate.On your poiints, I use FSXPassengers, so i am always trying to hit a failry precise gate time, so juggling speed is quite often what I need to do, especially on flights I am familiar with and for which I have a pretty good predicted flight time.Also with FSXp, I try to get the fuel load down to the minimum (with the mandatory 45mins extra that FSXp imposes) to get the maximum passenger and crew load.Descent is often an area where I can juggle an airspeed gain against a fuel saving though, the penalty for being light on fuel way outweighs the upside of a precise arrival time.Anyway, thanks againIan Seager

Ian,Ah, ok. I'm not familiar with FSP, so I didn't take that into account...sorry. You don't get penalized for arriving early do you?It's been quite a while since I've had time to actually fly FSX (I'm always too busy testing), but during the beta, I think I remember thinking that the fuel burn was a little bit higher than what I remember in real life. I usually save a few noteworthy dispatch releases from each airline and fleet type I've dispatched in the real world, but for the life of me, I can't find any of my J41 releases to check the fuel/TAS numbers against. We even had a "cheat-sheet" that had rough fuel requirements for every city-pair we flew to in case we ever lost power and had to dispatch without the computers. I can't find that little gem anywhere either.Anyway, I'm not sure what FSP requires, but if you're looking to plan fuel the way it would be done in the real world, here are a few considerations that we have to deal with (these all pertain to Part 121 Air Carrier operations only, btw):Load enough fuel to:1) Fly to your destination (1,200lb/hr for the first hour, and 1000lb/hr for each hour after that)2) Fly to the most distant alternate listed on the release. You ALWAYS need an alternate UNLESS the weather at your destination is forecast from 1hr before to 1hr after your ETA, to be at least 2000ft and 3sm. This is called the 1/2/3 rule. (Calculate this requirement at 1,200lb/hr.) 3) Fly for 45 minutes at cruise speed (700lb in the J41. Calculated at 10,000ft.)That constitutes the minimum legal fuel load - at the start of the takeoff roll - for a given flight, giving no consideration to other factors that might require more fuel. To account for those factors - and to truly be "legal" - you have to consider a few more things:4) Taxi fuel. 5 minutes (at 500lb/hr) is usually used at out stations. 10 minutes is standard for a hub. Consider planning greater-than-standard taxi fuel during Ground Delay Programs, and during peak periods of congestion. I've had to put over an hour of taxi fuel on J41's departing places like IAD and EWR.5) Actual/anticipated ATC delays like holding, excessive vectoring, altitude "capping" and "tunneling", tactical reroutes, etc. 6) Anticipate any route deviations that may be required for weather avoidance (watch the SIGMETs). 7) Also consider the possibility that you will need to cruise at a lower altitude in order to avoid turbulence or icing conditions (watch the AIRMETs).That's the basics, anyway...

Big thanks for the cruise torque chart Nick, could anyone from PMDG sticky it?Chris (廖傑英)

Well FSP penalises for less than 45 mins fuel in the tanks at shutdown and doesnt worry about alternates. All your other points I just allow for some slack up front, plus I usually allow the full 60mins cruise as a little extra in reserve.You dont have to specify an arrival time, but if you do, and you are not too early or too late, then some handy bonus points are on offer.Finaly FSP will penalise incorrect lights, flaps and gear procedures and speeds and incorect handling of any on board emergencies.Overall I find that it really helps with a little more immersion and discourages any "sim short cuts". Thanks for the information, I'll try flying a little faster and see how the fuel pans out, though I think 1350 an hour is going to be nearer the mark.Ian Seager

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