I'm having strange problems with the plane.  Most recently, on a trip from KATL to KRDU I assigned an altitude of FL250 ... the plane climbed to FL210 and just stayed there.  The only way I could reach assigned altitude is to take over using V/S and disable A/T and keep N1 at about 102%.  Also, and this was weird (and new just for this flight) ... all of the buttons on the MCP illuminated (see images attached to this message).

 

On a flight yesterday heading into Memphis the VNAV went absolutely nuts and plunged the airplane into a -7000fps dive ... and VNAV didn't follow the FMC waypoint instructions at all.

 

Is it possible that the installation has become corrupted?

 

 

Is there a reason your Flight Director is off? That maybe the issue. Also, what is your OAT and what are you using for weather? 

Maybe the plane was to heavy for the climb. Being fill of fuel and payload. Although FL250 has to be possible.

 

Strange to see the dive. Did you try complete uninstall and reinstall?

 

If You uninstall also delete any remaining files from PMDG file and simobjects.

 

RGS,

 

Yori Smulders

Is there a reason your Flight Director is off? That maybe the issue. Also, what is your OAT and what are you using for weather?

But its not possible to be in VNAV without the flight director on, right?

 

From experience i know that when setting up LNAV and VNAV cannot be selected without the flight director on

 

RGS,

 

Yori Smulders

 

 

But its not possible to be in VNAV without the flight director on, right?

From experience i know that when setting up LNAV and VNAV cannot be selected without the flight director on

RGS,

Yori Smulders

 

Yeah, thats what I thought, but I'm not 100% sure if thats the case or not. 

Oh crap ... yea, the FD switches were off ... so ... I redid another flight from KFLL to KTPA and made the cruise altitude FL220 ... the CDU showed a flight profile of not reaching TOC until LBV ... which is where the 3-2-1 Descent Calculation determined to be the optimal time for TOD. 

 

As far as OAT is concerned, I always leave that blank on the N1 page of the initialization process.  However, this problem just started this month, when the weather is warmer ... so this is not outside the bounds of reason.

 

I use REX for textures and Opus FSI Server for weather.

 

The plane has 174 passengers, 3,500 lbs in the forward compartment and 4,000 lbs in the aft compartment.  The fuel load was just enough to get to KRDU ... which was about 13,500 lbs.

 

I have not uninstalled and reinstalled as I seem to remember the folks at PMDG get touchy after so many reinstalls.  I'm getting a new computer (for software development) tomorrow or the next day so I might as wait for that to take up one of my reinstall counts.

 

As far as being able to engage LNAV and VNAV without the FD switches on ... it would appear that I accomplished that ^_^.

 

I'm guessing that setting the OAT is in one of the tutorials ... I go there and check things out.

 

Thanks for all the attention!

 

CTBlankenship (SWA4996)

He's not asking what you entered in for the T/C OAT in the FMC, he's asking what the OAT really was in FSX's environment. Look at the upper engine DU - if you see a TAT number that's like 39C or something crazy like that up at altitude then your whole problem is being caused by the bug in FSX that causes station-based weather to have wildly high temperatures up in the flight levels. We went over this with Stephen from Opus a while back after people starting blaming the NGX for it - there's nothing anyone can do to solve it unfortunately because it's an FSX problem. The only way to completely avoid it is to use global weather, (ie Active Sky's DWC mode) but you lose out on the cool stuff like being able to see cloud banks and frontal boundaries from a distance as you approach them by doing that.

TAT was the problem ... I was at an altitude of 16,500 and the TAT was 55 degrees C ... as I was keeping an eye on it I notice that the plane began a quick climb to the specified cruise altitude of FL200 ... when this happened TAT was around 19C.  Shortly thereafter, TAT increased to high 50s and low 60s. 

 

Thanks for the heads up Ryan. 

 

Also, as I was descending ... THREE times the A/T caused N1 to increase into the 90s during approach and final ... which caused my speed to go above 250kts below 10,000 ft. ... resulting in my flight being rejected.  Was this due to the TAT problem as well?

 

When will PMDG support Prepar3d ... if ever? 

 

Thanks,

 

Charles T. Blankenship

I just performed another test from KATL to KPNS and the A/T increased engines to over 90% N1 three times below 10,000 ft.  Now, whenever I'm coming up on the approach I have to disable the A/T and monitor it myself all the way through landing.  I just want this

$70.00 add-on to do what I tell it to do ... without it developing a mind of its own.

 

Is this a bug or is it a corrupted installation?

 

Thanks,

 

C. T. Blankenship

Are you getting wind shifts (yet another FSX bug) that cause a drop in airspeed and the engines to surge up like that? I'm definitely not aware of any bugs in the NGX code that would cause that.

No ... I disabled all external weather engines and the A/T still surged ... I just disable it and manually fly the aircraft now.  My new CyberPowerPC laptop should be arriving tomorrow ... then I'll do a clean install of FSX, Active Sky 2012 (newest SP) and the PMDG 737NGX and see if anything changes.

 

Doing this I was able to get a landing rate of -102 instead of +300 ...

 

Thanks,

 

CT

Here is another tidbit to the puzzle.  I dropped OPUS and installed Active Sky 2012 (newest service pack).  Guess what happened ... the 737 zoomed right to cruise altitude with authority.  Whanna know why?  When using Active Sky 2012 it kept the TAT to a reasonable level ... 7C - 12C ... the problem is that every five seconds (you could set your watch to it) ... something would reset and for a second the TAT went back to 50ish ... then immediately back to a low amount.  It is like Active Sky 2012 accurately interprets the proper value and FSX tries to inject its view on the situation and then AS2012 immediately resets it to a normal level.  Very odd.

 

So, I keep AS2012 working until initial climb out and then shut it down after cruise so I don't have to get slammed around every 5 seconds or so. 

 

I have a trouble ticket in with them to see if they can keep the TAT at a consistently low and reasonable amount.  If they can ... well ... we have a solution to the problem I hope.

 

C. T. Blankenship

 

 

Also, as I was descending ... THREE times the A/T caused N1 to increase into the 90s during approach and final ... which caused my speed to go above 250kts below 10,000 ft. ... resulting in my flight being rejected.  Was this due to the TAT problem as well?

 

Probably not.

 

If you have hardware throttles, make sure they're at idle whenever you're on A/T, or you select the appropriate mode from your PMDG options menu to override your hardware throttles at all times.  There's a mode in there that behaves like the real thing, allowing you control of your throttle for much of the descent (any time it's in ARM mode).  As such, the sim defers to your hardware throttles' position.  If you're on your merry way not knowing that fact and it hits that mode, you're probably getting around takeoff thrust because that's where most people leave the throttle when they throw on the A/T.  In the real thing, servos keep them in sync.

 

 

 

So, I keep AS2012 working until initial climb out and then shut it down after cruise so I don't have to get slammed around every 5 seconds or so.

 

Use DWC mode, or a registered version of FSUIPC to avoid these insane wind shifts.  There are ways around this, and they're pointed out in the AS2012 manual (I only defer to it here because it has a better explanation of the tradeoffs in each mode).

 

 

 

I have a trouble ticket in with them to see if they can keep the TAT at a consistently low and reasonable amount.  If they can ... well ... we have a solution to the problem I hope.

 

Sounds like there's some background fighting going on, and I believe it's more an issue on your own computer, rather than with the developers.  I use both the NGX and AS2012 with none of the issues you're having.

 

Are you running all of the programs as an admin?  To cover your bases, do you have full control of the folder structure for your Flight Sim directory?  Is your anti-virus program ignoring that directory and FSX/AS2012 from active (real-time) scanning?

Here is another tidbit to the puzzle. I dropped OPUS and installed Active Sky 2012 (newest service pack). Guess what happened ... the 737 zoomed right to cruise altitude with authority. Whanna know why? When using Active Sky 2012 it kept the TAT to a reasonable level ... 7C - 12C ... the problem is that every five seconds (you could set your watch to it) ... something would reset and for a second the TAT went back to 50ish ... then immediately back to a low amount.

 

Funny, i dont have any problem like this with the latest version of OPUS, as a matter of fact, when i used to use activesky, when passing around 20,000-24,000ft the temperature would increase a few degrees as i climbed then started to go back down again, this would almost always happen on every flight and ALWAYS happened climbing out of Miami, since switching to OPUS i have never seen this issue so far. Make sure dynamic weather changes are disabled in your FSX and weather updates in FSX is off,

 

In OPUS there are settings to use GRIB winds and temperature data, and also to use sim friendly options or smooth the data, make sure those are selected...as a matter of fact just set it to adjust options automatically and use sim friendly grib data, that will automatically set everything up, just make sure you set your destination and maximum altitude you will be cruising at so it knows how to set the options in OPUS.

Edited June 19, 201312 yr by tcas_climb

Scandinavian13:

 

Well done ... the setting in PMDG Options as well as positioning the throttle to minimum fixed the N1 surge problem.  I had a feeling it was something I forgot to do.

 

I was running every program as admin ... since my User account is a member of the Administrators group I figure that is happening by default.

 

I added full control to myself (although Administrators were given full control automatically) ... just in case.

 

AS2012 was already in DWC mode.

 

I'm not going to purchase the registered version of FSUIPC just yet.  I'm going to let AS2012 people get back with me and see what they say first.  Also, doesn't AS2012 use SimConnect instead of FSUIPC?

 

I setup Norton 360 to ignore MS FSX and AS2012 directories (as well as all subfolders).

 

On another flight from KATL to KPNS I used AS2012 during the climb out ... but closed it during cruise to prevent the buffeting to the aircraft when the TAT flip flopped.  The A/T behaved admirably during the descent.  If I can't get the TAT fixed, at least I have a work around (although not an optimal one). 

 

I also have REX ... I'm gonna give that a whirl as well.

 

TCAS_Climb

 

As soon as I get word back from AS2012 I'll reinstall OPUS using the settings you suggest.  I'll use anything that will get the plane working correctly again.

 

Thanks for everyone's help and time ... you guys sure know what you are talking about.

 

Charles T. Blankenship

 

 

Well done ... the setting in PMDG Options as well as positioning the throttle to minimum fixed the N1 surge problem.  I had a feeling it was something I forgot to do.

 

Thought that might be the issue.  Glad that's sorted!

 

 

 

Also, doesn't AS2012 use SimConnect instead of FSUIPC?

 

It does, but that doesn't stop FSUIPC from being able to process the weather in the sim and smooth out any issues if they present themselves.