Few Questions...

[ESzczesniak]

I had a chance this afternoon to make my first JS4100 flight with FS2Crew. Needless to say I love it, but I also have a few questions. So here it goes:1. During the cockpit preperation phase, the First Officer has a number of items that need to be completed on battery power only for the first flight of the day. Namely, gear horn, fire detection and standby power tests. It seems that he moves immediately from these to the systems tests to perform once the bus power is established (namely CAP, GPWS, smoke, etc.). What is the appropriate squence for applying power for this to work? It does not appear that the FO will disconnect the GPU (if already connected) to perform these tests. If the aircraft is left on batteries, will the FO turn on the GPU between the standby power and CAP tests as directed by the checklist? As far as I am aware, the only two ways to establish essential bus power necessary for these tests is through the GPU or an engine generator (please correct me if I am wrong).2. Most heading/altitude/speed commands make sense. However, the manual only lists a "bug flight level x" and no way to "bug altitude x". Is there a way to do this? For those of us flying in the USA most of the JS4100's operations will be altitudes instead of flight level. Even if flying in Europe, many of the altitudes given for approach setups would require this (i.e. be under transition level).3. How do you get the FO to arm/set various flight director modes? The manual lists the available modes of the flight director, but doesn't give the syntax for asking the FO to arm them.4. Lastly, perhaps you could englighten us a bit to how the FO sets power for takeoff. It seems he merely firewalls the throttles. If so, this can create issues at high elevation airports where fire walling the throttles will exceed max EGT. See this post I made in the PMDG forums to see if there was anyway to determine torque limits to avoid this (http://forums1.avsim.net/index.php?showtopic=286429). Unfortunately, we just don't have the data in the flight simulator community to set hard torque limits. If the FO is just "firewalling" the throttles up against the set torque limit, perhaps a future SP could include the option in the configuration window to set takeoff power either by the FO or to do it ourselves?Awesome product and thanks for any help on these.Eric Szczesniak

[byork]

I had a chance this afternoon to make my first JS4100 flight with FS2Crew. Needless to say I love it, but I also have a few questions. So here it goes:1. During the cockpit preperation phase, the First Officer has a number of items that need to be completed on battery power only for the first flight of the day. Namely, gear horn, fire detection and standby power tests. It seems that he moves immediately from these to the systems tests to perform once the bus power is established (namely CAP, GPWS, smoke, etc.). What is the appropriate squence for applying power for this to work? It does not appear that the FO will disconnect the GPU (if already connected) to perform these tests. If the aircraft is left on batteries, will the FO turn on the GPU between the standby power and CAP tests as directed by the checklist? As far as I am aware, the only two ways to establish essential bus power necessary for these tests is through the GPU or an engine generator (please correct me if I am wrong).2. Most heading/altitude/speed commands make sense. However, the manual only lists a "bug flight level x" and no way to "bug altitude x". Is there a way to do this? For those of us flying in the USA most of the JS4100's operations will be altitudes instead of flight level. Even if flying in Europe, many of the altitudes given for approach setups would require this (i.e. be under transition level).3. How do you get the FO to arm/set various flight director modes? The manual lists the available modes of the flight director, but doesn't give the syntax for asking the FO to arm them.4. Lastly, perhaps you could englighten us a bit to how the FO sets power for takeoff. It seems he merely firewalls the throttles. If so, this can create issues at high elevation airports where fire walling the throttles will exceed max EGT. See this post I made in the PMDG forums to see if there was anyway to determine torque limits to avoid this (http://forums1.avsim.net/index.php?showtopic=286429). Unfortunately, we just don't have the data in the flight simulator community to set hard torque limits. If the FO is just "firewalling" the throttles up against the set torque limit, perhaps a future SP could include the option in the configuration window to set takeoff power either by the FO or to do it ourselves?Awesome product and thanks for any help on these.Eric Szczesniak

Hi Eric,Glad to hear you like it! Spread the word!1. Assuming you're going to run the Pre-Flight events, turn on both battery switches before or right after you press the RUN PF button. FS2Crew will connect the GPU unit to the plane during the "Cold and Dark" setup routine, so you can also connect the GPU if desired.The FO will not turn on the batteries for you during the Pre-Flight events. That's your responsibility. You can see which items the FO will perform in the PMDG AOM manual and the FS2Crew manual. The procedures used by FS2Crew come directly out of the PMDG AOM manual, which in turn came from Robert Randazzo's old airline.2. "Bug Altitude" is definitely there. Example syntax:"Bug Altitude three thousand five hundred""Bug Altitude one zero thousand""Bug Altitude one three thousand""Bug Altitude seven thousand one hundred"The FO will set the altitude if using this syntax regarding of whether the autopilot is on or off.3. Flight Director Models:Please look on Page 39 of the manual. They're all listed there."Heading""Flight Director Standby""Nav""I A S"And so on...4. Yes, he firewalls it. While programming the Jetstream, I tried to do what you suggested. The problem is most people have joystick throttles, and it's very difficult to get a "nuanced" power setting because the joystick throttles often override throttle positing input sent by FS2Crew.So if you're at a high elevation airport, just manually trim the throttle a bit if required.All the best,

[ESzczesniak]

Thanks for the reply, I appreciate the help. I'm not sure fully understand the answers for 1 and 3 though.1. I understand connecting the power myself (batteries and/or GPU) and never expected the FO to connect those. My question was how to make sure that the FO is performing the cockpit preperation items of gear horn, fire detection fault, and standby power while the aircraft is ONLY on battery power and then is performaing the CAP, coaming panel lights, overheat detection fault, smoke, GPWS and autopilot tests ONLY once the essential bus power is established (this is how the checklist directs that it should be done). The logical way to do this would be for me to only establish battery power until the FO completes the standby power check (the last item on the battery power only list) and then connect the GPU before he starts the CAP test (the first item on the essential bus power established list). The problem is the FO doesn't pause between these two items, so the timing of the GPU power (not connecting it, but pushing the overhead GPU switch to establish GPU power) is difficult. At the moment I've just been letting him run the battery power only checks with essential bus power established to avoid problems once he reaches those items, but as far as I can tell this isn't the way it's supposed to happen.3. I saw those on page 39. So really all I need to do is say "heading" and the FO will push the heading select (just as an example). These one word commands just caught me off guard. I was expecting something like "engage heading mode" or similar. I do feel stupid for having to clarify this one, but these one word/phrase commands listed in the manual didn't seem to be working on my test flight...I'll be honest that I didn't test them that thoroughly though as I was quickly nearing the approach clearance by the time I got around to investigating these.Thanks for the replies.

[byork]

Thanks for the reply, I appreciate the help. I'm not sure fully understand the answers for 1 and 3 though.1. I understand connecting the power myself (batteries and/or GPU) and never expected the FO to connect those. My question was how to make sure that the FO is performing the cockpit preperation items of gear horn, fire detection fault, and standby power while the aircraft is ONLY on battery power and then is performaing the CAP, coaming panel lights, overheat detection fault, smoke, GPWS and autopilot tests ONLY once the essential bus power is established (this is how the checklist directs that it should be done). The logical way to do this would be for me to only establish battery power until the FO completes the standby power check (the last item on the battery power only list) and then connect the GPU before he starts the CAP test (the first item on the essential bus power established list). The problem is the FO doesn't pause between these two items, so the timing of the GPU power (not connecting it, but pushing the overhead GPU switch to establish GPU power) is difficult. At the moment I've just been letting him run the battery power only checks with essential bus power established to avoid problems once he reaches those items, but as far as I can tell this isn't the way it's supposed to happen.3. I saw those on page 39. So really all I need to do is say "heading" and the FO will push the heading select (just as an example). These one word commands just caught me off guard. I was expecting something like "engage heading mode" or similar.Thanks for the replies.

1. When programming the Jetream, I asked Robert Randazzo of PMDG (he's the expert on this plane :( ) about that what you asked as I found it confusing too. Please do it this way for now:After starting the sim, connect the GPU on the overhead.Robert told me that the FO will perform "both sections", including Battery Power only EVEN when the GPU is connected.Maybe Robert R. can chime in here since he's the true authority on these procedures.2. Correct, it's just as described in the PMDG AOM manual. Single word commands generally for the Flight Director.Cheers,

[ESzczesniak]

Thanks, sounds good. I am aware that Robert Randazzp actaully flew these for a while, so if this is how he recommended that's enough for me. Just seemed different based on the checklist provided by PMDG.