Hi guys/gals. I've been a loyal NGX fan since the day of release, and one of my favorite features of this addon is the saved flight function. Unlike most addons, the NGX remembers everything PERFECTLY, at least based on my past experience with the current build. I mean it, the minute I resume a flight everything from the switches position to FMC settings and the legs waypoints are as they had been before, and I can easily resume a flight or practice takeoffs or landings to my heart's content without frantically resetting switches or recalling FMC details that I may have forgotten.

 

However, and it pains me to say it, the NGX has let me down today. I was flying a nice "long haul" in a United -900, as Flight UAL1721 from KSFO to KBOS. If I'm running short on time, I will often save the flight in cruise so that I can resume when I please, and I had done so for this flight about an hour away from arrival to KBOS. I resume the saved flight, and the aircraft goes through it's normal 10 second initialization sequence, but I notice some strange green characters on the engine display where the N1 reading should be:

 

 

 

Once the flight finishes loading, I also discover that I cannot enable VNAV, and hence, there is a VNAV disconnect message on the FMC. Now I have lost the route info, not good at all! I tried my best to input the route from the saved route database in my attempt to salvage this operation, but to no avail, because my computer freezes and I'm forced to do a hard reboot.

 

I remember seeing this "VNAV disconnect" behavior with saved flights in a previous build, but I was very astonished to find it resurface here, after months and months of perfect saved flights.

 

The only unusual thing on this flight as compared to previous ones was that I had played around with the chronometer to see how the time/date UTC vs. Manual time function works. I started the flight in KSFO at PST, and when I was in cruise over Utah with MST, I was curious to see if I could set the local time in the chronometer ahead an hour to match the local time on the ground (as it was showing local time at San Francisco), but it ended up reloading the flight. Not liking that result, I went back to Man time and set it back an hour to where it was before, and proceeded with the flight. I'm not sure how this could play into this issue, but it may be worth pointing out. This all occurred a few hours before I saved the flight, which happened to be over Michigan.

 

Anyways, I just wanted to know if anyone else has experienced the dreaded VNAV disconnect bug with the current SP1c build. Apart from the messing around with the clock earlier in the flight, the flight was normal as most of my sessions, and I just hit the save button as I usually do. Oh, one more thing, FS2crew was active, but the windows were hidden, and I have always used FS2crew without any ill effects with saved flights in the past.

 

Sorry for the long winded post, but this was one of my more memorable experiences with the NGX, and I was really looking forward to my arrival to beautiful Boston, and it stinks to have to throw all my preparation and enjoyment out the window for what I thought was a long squashed bug.

I haven't experienced the VNAV being directly off upon immediate resumption, but I have experienced some other items not being in the last position they were left in at the time of the save. One, though minor, is the landing cabin pressure.. sometimes it remembers to leave it where it was at and other times, it resumes at the original default of 50. Another issue is the speedbrake/spoilers... I made a the tutorial #1 landing at EHAM, auto deploying the speedbrake/spoilers, turned off the runway and stopped just beyond the Hold Point and immediately saved in order to have a resume point prior to the After Landing procedure and the long taxi... The save was strictly to be able to break the flight up for my own training purposes. When I reloaded the save, the first thing in the After Landing procedure is to check the Speedbrake/Spoilers to ensure you have retracted them... The save had retracted them... I repeated the landing and double checked that the Speedbrake/spoilers were indeed deployed right before I saved again. Reloaded the save, and they were confirmed to be retracted. This is annoying because one has to wonder what other items are incorrectly saved, meaning after everything is reloaded thru the 20 second reload routine, you have to immediately "pause" the NGX simulator and go thru everything to be sure nothing else is out of place.

Hi Michael, sorry to hear about the spoiler not deploying. I should have said that the saved state function is not 100% perfect, but it's close to perfect. I was aware of the landing altitude on the cabin pressure auto setting to 50 ft after a save, but I was not aware of the spoiler issue. Nonetheless, PMDG has really done it right, as most other addons I know of, including previous PMDG products, leave a few things out during the save. At least you are aware of the few things to set when you pause the sim when restarting a saved scenario.

 

I tried a few times today to resume from where I left off, and it looks like things are really botched behind the scenes with this particular saved file. I tried to disregard LNAV and VNAV functionality by going into Alt Hold and Heading Select mode, but the autothrottle would slowly retard the throttles on its own, the airspeed would decay, and I would end up with a low speed buffet stall. I could just disconnect the autothrottle and use manual throttle, but that does not make sense to me for the remainder of the flight. I have FSUIPC save my flights every 2 minutes, so I tried to load some other saved flight files from that flight, but they also had the same problem as the original save file.

 

The VNAV disconnect issue is very aggravating, because there really is no way to properly resume the flight without the FMC having any record of your route or the performance parameters entered in preflight. And the A/T disconnect issue is just icing on the cake. Anyhow, I'm going to leave this alone and just attempt the flight again from scratch, flying the route to completion without any saved flights. But I will save the flight at some point in cruise just to test afterwards to see if the bug resurfaces. I'm hoping that my messing around with the clock's local time is the culprit.

 

I will submit a ticket to PMDG on this issue, hopefully they may be able to find out what is causing this, in case others have had the same problem.

I can also confirm that the transponder squawk code reverts back to 1200 after a panel state reload.

I was involved in a similar thread a while back and this is what Ryan had to say in his post #14

 

http://forum.avsim.net/topic/361085-saving-a-flight-does-it-ever-work/

 

Regards,

The same thing has periodically happened to me but not all the time. There seems to be no particular pattern as to when a flight has saved properly or not. I have confirmed it is in the "saving" procedure rather than, as Ryan had suggested, in the reloading. Once a flight has been corrupted in the save there is no way to ever get it back apparently. My experience has been similar to the OP. My FMC is blank except for the departure and destination on the route page. I always save my route after my initial programming so I have no problem recalling it and even setting a "DIRECT TO" the next waypoint in the LEGS page BUT the PERF page info has to all be re-entered. Usually somewhere in that process the computer FREEZES and I have to engage TASK MGR to exit FSX. I have sent a trouble ticket on this months ago and the response was to do a REINSTALL but that did not cure the anomaly. I still save while enroute and often times also on approach and final and again after I stow the REVERSERS on touchdown (so I can view my landing on replay). I never have a problem reloading the "touchdown" situation but the others are a crap-shoot at best.

 

No solution to offer but I thought I would offer my commiseration! LOL

...Once the flight finishes loading, I also discover that I cannot enable VNAV, and hence, there is a VNAV disconnect message on the FMC. Now I have lost the route info, not good at all! I tried my best to input the route from the saved route database in my attempt to salvage this operation, but to no avail, ...

 

...The same thing has periodically happened to me but not all the time. There seems to be no particular pattern as to when a flight has saved properly or not...

I still save while enroute and often times also on approach and final and again after I stow the REVERSERS on touchdown (so I can view my landing on replay)...

 

Hi Both,

 

Very similar to what you both describe, especially the -1000000nm to TOD shown on the FMC.

 

I too can offer no solution however, I suspect it may be to do with how your routes are generated.... How do you generate your routes? In particular how do you enter them? i.e., are they imported?

 

Do you also notice that if you do land one of these reloaded saved flights that once your speed goes below 80kts, the V1 callout just loops and will not be quiet!?

 

Also if I do continue with the approach in one of these flights I have been able to activate reverse thrust - a few thousand feet AGL.

 

Thanks

 

Carl Beeby

Very similar to what you both describe, especially the -1000000nm to TOD shown on the FMC.

 

I too can offer no solution however, I suspect it may be to do with how your routes are generated.... How do you generate your routes? In particular how do you enter them? i.e., are they imported?

 

Do you also notice that if you do land one of these reloaded saved flights that once your speed goes below 80kts, the V1 callout just loops and will not be quiet!?

 

Also if I do continue with the approach in one of these flights I have been able to activate reverse thrust - a few thousand feet AGL.

 

 

First off I generate the flight plans independently from FXSFP program and then I manually input them. Same procedure every time and sometimes I can reload them, sometimes I can't so that is not a causative factor.

 

If you are successful in reconstituting FMC you will find that many of the "numbers" are corrupt but deleting them with the "delete" key restores them. The same is true on the PERF page if FMC allows you to get to it. If you are successful with the PERF and have reloaded the flight plan then when you set "direct to" the next waypoint (by down-selecting it and activating it) you should be able to activate LNAV and VNAV as well as CMD and your flight should continue uncorrupted. I have no "V1" issues nor have I ever tried to activate reverse thrust while airborne.

 

My procedure to reload a saved situation is to first enable "slew" then unpause the simulation so it can initialize. Sometimes the VC will have black squares in place of the displays but that clears up once initialized. When complete I re-pause the simulation before releasing "slew". I want to add that most of the time I have no problem reloading a situation this way, but when I do, it is a frustrating mess usually resulting in a FSX freeze.

.... I have no "V1" issues nor have I ever tried to activate reverse thrust while airborne....

 

 

Hi and thanks for the reply.

 

I'll give that a try then when / if I next encounter that. I've just rebuilt my machine (Operating system only onto 2xSSDs) so I'll see if that clears anything up.

 

I worded the reverse bit wrong. Basically I've never tried to activate it, I think it was just doing it itself after one restore! I even disconnected all hardware controls etc. but I think that was rare!

 

Regards

 

Carl Beeby