When I first load or end (back to FSX screen) my cold & dark flight (engines are not running), I hear the engines go from running to shut down (quite loud). Any clues on this anyone.

Mine is doing the same...I guess it has something to do with loading of the PMDG .dll file and it is perhaps something to be worked on for the next patch.

My "solution" is the only tweak I add to .cfg, it doesn't remove that sound but makes it much shorter and appear when I'm loading the flight. For me, this way it's much less annoying. [Main]DisablePreload=1

My "solution" is the only tweak I add to .cfg, it doesn't remove that sound but makes it much shorter and appear when I'm loading the flight. For me, this way it's much less annoying. [Main]DisablePreload=1

I tried that and still no go. The problem occurs when after ending a flight and are returned to the "rotating model" in the "Free Flight" screen. Once you hit the "Load..." button, the J41 engines sounds present themselves in a very loud way going from full flight to cut-off. I believe this is an isoloated problem since PMDG would not have released SP1 this way. Perhaps it is because I first loaded the "... JS4100 Tutorial 1 at KHPN" when the previous flight in another aircraft was exited with engines running. Don't know if this makes any sense however.Also, the J41 does not seem to save my cold and dark state correctly. Passengers remain and many overhead swithes remain on and powered in spite of having no GPU and having saved the flight in a completely powered down state. Seems like I am in a mess and any help would be appreciated.

I also have this annoying issue of the loud sounds playing in free flight preview.As for saved panel state not loading correctly, I also have the same issue, most the time reloading it a second time in a row fixes it, seems the first pass doesn't quite set everything.

"Not saved panel" is not an issue, JS41 just can't save it. And as I remember Ryan (or someone else from PMDG crew) said, that they will not put this feature into SP, because it's to much complex coding... I do understand it, they need profit, and profit comes from new developments, but for me it's like leaving the work unfinished. With "panel save" feature and few bug fixes, JS4100 would be complete and perfect!

"Not saved panel" is not an issue, JS41 just can't save it. And as I remember Ryan (or someone else from PMDG crew) said, that they will not put this feature into SP, because it's to much complex coding... I do understand it, they need profit, and profit comes from new developments, but for me it's like leaving the work unfinished. With "panel save" feature and few bug fixes, JS4100 would be complete and perfect!

I understand that there is no dedicated "Panel Save" feature as in the 747. But are you saying that the J41 panel state is not saved when using the native FSX save flight? Is this true?

Unfortunately yes. If You will open flight save file, You will find there [J41 Cockpit State] with all possible switches etc, only some of them are saved correctly while saving the flight, and even if You edit them manually they won't load with the flight, sometimes loading the flight twice corrects this for some reason. And probably this is some FSX limitation, because all complex add on aircrafts have their own "Panel Save" if they have any. It'd be better is someone from dev team would say something more about it, because all I do is guessing, but If you will search for "Cold & Dark" threads within this forum, You should find more info.

Hearing some small sound when loading the plane in the FS window is normal (on mine it's a quick switch and electrical noise, I don't what would cause it to be the engine sound) - it's just the panel code initializing itself.