Uncontrollable after AP disconnect on final

[HiFly 16]

It has always been my practice in real life to disconnect AP on coupled approach once landing was assured and hand fly the rest of the approach and landing. When I disconnect the AP on the simulation of B737NGX, however, the plane immediately goes into an uncontrollable right bank and is unresponsive to any manual control inputs. I have tested this scenario with and without wx settings on my registered FSUIPC v4.6. I have tried to regain control by reselecting CMB or CMS (neither will activate) or by disonnecting the FD's. The system screen shows that the control surfaces are displacing correctly but the simulation does not respond or react to any of the inputs. I have no problem disconnecting or reconnecting the AP in any other phase of flght. The problem has only occured if I disconnect after "APP" is active. I do not have the hotfix installed as I have not experienced CTD or freezes on my system with one very distinct exception: when I reload a saved flight it causes a fatal error in FSX if it does not load as an 'external view'. By switching to external view before I save a situation seems to avoid this problem. If I save a flight during "APP" active phase, however, it will not reload no matter what view I have saved it in. The two problems may in some way be related(?) The other anoying issue which has already been addressed is that each time a situation is reloaded the simulation adds 9000 feet to the radio altimeter setting! Don't get me wrong, however. I am ecstatic about the level of detail and other than the two issues above, everything performs according to spec even with the emergency scenarios I have tried. I use 2D panel during critical phases of flight because as a real pilot I am used to performing a continuous instrument scan and I need to use my eyes not my mouse! I do, however, find it accomodating to have the VC for all the preflight tests and setup. The details are incredible. So much more than ever could be reasonably accomodated on 2D panels alone. The throttle quadrant not being 2D is a non-issue for me as long as I have a main panel with all my essential flight instruments within constant view. FSX Deluxe/Vista 64/Quad Core 2.66G/Nvidia 9500GT/4G Ram Craig

[caspian.merlin 0]

Hi there Craig, This sounds quite similar to a problem I have been having. The other day I landed at EGTE and started to turn the plane around on the runway, as I'd gone past all the taxiway turn-offs. The plane suddenly became completely unresponsive to certain controls - I couldn't control the rudder, ailerons or anything. I could still, however, control the throttle - so the plane just went round and round in circles. I had this issue again one time while flying, and I had to abort the flight. All other times it's been OK, it was just these two times. Anyway, I've just installed the hotfix, so I'm hoping that will prevent it from ever happening again.

[fsxenthusiast 1]

I had an issue like this yesterday.. Spent 2 hours inputting my flight plan into the FMC from KLAS to KPHX.. I wanted to land runway 25r, which has no ILS information so i would need to do a manual landing, but no AI aircraft ever land on it so i can always get cleared for landing w/o AI aircraft all flying right past me and beating me to it since they all come in for approach at 250 knots:/ And when I disengaged the autopilot to land manually on my final approach, the FMC kicked on and started taking me into a circle and then nosedive. I could not figure out how to take control again, the autopilot and flight directors and autospeed were all turned off, and the FMC already said end of route. But i nosedived and crashed into the ground:( now I'm not sure if I just missed something or not, but it did make me wonder if it'll try it again on another flight.

[HiFly 16]

Seems others are having this problem, too. It does not seem to be an OOM or system issue. I wonder how we are going to be able to do a circling approach. In RL I have never used autopilot but always flown it manually! Hope this bumps it up. Craig

[vc10man 727]

@Craig Interesting post, but as a I only fly my approaches and landings with auto-land, however,like you, have not had any major issues such as CTDs or freeze-ups and have noticed that you too have not installed the 'Hotfix'. My question is,does one HAVE to install this Hotfix despite RSR recommending to do so,even on stable platforms? Maybe somebody such as Ryan can shed some wiser light on this?

[namida 0]

Similar issue here experienced over 15,000FPM dive within only 1 sec.I already mentioned this issue via support but they treated I'm not familiar with NGX. I'm sure it is a bug. Had never been experieced or heard that Autopilot/FMC makes plane dive with 15,000FPM in the blink of an eye.It happened right after EXEC clicked to apply ARR change during initial descent. (MCP ALT was set to 1800)After this, I found the rest of two fixes before Transition have been changed to 1,800. (was 11,000A and 8,000B)Wish this would be helpful for NGX.

[ZachLW 36]

+1 and my panels froze at 36,000ft.

[HiFly 16]

bump

[xxts 0]

Had this happen to me today. Lodged ticket. Uncontrolled descending right turn after A/P disengage on finals. Yoke frozen in position and throttles only capable of reverse not forward thrust. No reverse indications on eng display and throttles frozen in position also.

[HiFly 16]

Update! I installed the QuickFix because I was also having "fatal error" anytime I tried to reload a saved situation. This time I am able to reload situation without an error. I can open panels and resume flight with one very serious problem: The FMC is empty. It now does not reload the saved FMC route/perf info. The basic load/fw is correct and it allows me to re-enter destination and waypoints but it will not allow me to access the index. Doing so leads to "fatal error". I have not had a chance to test the disconnect again. I did disconnect and reconnect several times on approach all the way down to circling minimums without any problem. I turned off AT but continued with the AP on and it allowed me to overide it when I flaired. Not realistic since keeping the autopilot connected after DH is usually not SOP for most companies unless it is an autocoupled landing. I had saved several situations along the way so that I could reload them and try a disconnect after minimums but I am unable to refly the situations at this point. I will have to start a flight from scratch. I tried to get into the site to log a ticket but it was stalled out - many others ahead of me clogging the site I expect. I am curious if anyone else has had the fatal error when trying to reload situations after applying the "fix". Craig

[ZachLW 36]

I finally uninstalled the liveries and the NGX. A clean install with the hotfix cleared up my issues.It took about three minutes.

[pete_auau 570]

@Craig Interesting post, but as a I only fly my approaches and landings with auto-land, however,like you, have not had any major issues such as CTDs or freeze-ups and have noticed that you too have not installed the 'Hotfix'. My question is,does one HAVE to install this Hotfix despite RSR recommending to do so,even on stable platforms? Maybe somebody such as Ryan can shed some wiser light on this?

if u dont have any issues than dont install the hotfix like me i got no issues and not going to install the hotfix since it mite bring issues that i havnt got now

[HiFly 16]

Good advice, Pete. But I did have the "fatal error" issue everytime I tried to reload a saved situation unless it was at cruise level or parked at the gate. Any other scenario gave me the error before the view of the plane would even appear. I purged the liveries, applied the fix, then reloaded my liveries. I can now reload situations without error, but the FMC info apparently is either not being saved or it is not being reloaded completely and it causes a crash when I try to input it. But I may no longer have the crash on disconnect problem which was my main initial issue this thread. I will need to start a new flight from scratch since I cannot access my enroute situations. Will report back on results. Craig

[vc10man 727]

if u dont have any issues than dont install the hotfix like me i got no issues and not going to install the hotfix since it mite bring issues that i havnt got now

Thanks Pete. I thought so,as I have no issues having bought my package a few days after the original release date,and touch wood, have had no issues,or not issues that I have not been able to manage myself,which has allowed me to accumulate over a 100 hours,so, if it ain't broke why fix it,I say,and will skip that Hotfix.

[HiFly 16]

After testing with the fix applied, I can now access saved situations, but they no longer load the FMC info. Must use the saved panel file and the saved route file (if you made one). Good news is that it no longer banks uncontrollably after AP disconnect but my computer locks up entirely (must reboot to get out of FSX) when I manually begin the flare before touchdown. I have submitted a separate trouble ticket on this. Anyone else with this issue? Craig