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rb211

Serious issues with Flight Factor 757

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Hello, first off let me introduce myself to the forum. My name is Bill and I am a real life airline pilot, currently flying with a regional airline on CRJ 900's and 700's. If you routinely fly out of Charlotte, NC from the E gates, there is a chance you've been on one of my flights. 

I've been a flight simulations junkie since middle school and been professionally flying since 2007.  Even though I do not fly 757's, I do have a experience in a Level D 757 full motion simulator. I also have experience programming in C, C#, Java, and a little C++.  So I also know just how hard it is to replicate the systems on a real airplane, and can only imagine just how hard it can be without any real experience on the airplane itself.  

 

With all of this said, the Flight Factor 757 is an amazing accomplishment thus far for X-plane, however there are certain things that just are not correct that if I had known about, I would not of purchased it.

The FMS... It just simply does not work like the real thing. LNAV stays in white, some times you get a msg saying that you are not on an intercept course, other times you do not. Some times you are able to set it new altitudes for fixes, other times you are not able to. The FMS says invalid entry when in real life you can do it. 

The bank angle limit select seems to be backwards, when you set it to 5, it banks more than when you set it to 15. Climbing to altitude, the mach/IAS button did very weird things. It would go from 100 to 400 when I pushed it.  When the Lnav would not leave white, I tried resetting the auto pilot. It did not fix it.  I tried selecting a new direct intercept fix, did not fix it.  When you try to manually enter in a new fix in flight, I would get the Invalid entry, then the Execute button would light up, which it is not supposed to do if it is an INVALID entry!!! 

The replies I read from the developers  in other threads about the Vnav bug tell a very sad tale. They expect you to follow procedures exactly or don't be surprised if it does not work.  What they are really hinting at is that their coding is sub par, and it's not their fault. In real life, in industrial applications, systems are modeled to work with tremendous amount of error checking, expecting the user to throw in garbage, and they are programmed to not accept it. In real life, in the airplane, you ham fist your way through the FMS and it will still work, you can do things backwards, and it will still work.  Because in real life, they would get sued by the airline, the pilots union, the FAA, and the NTSB.  

 

The amount of things that are seriously incorrect is horrendous.  I am really dismayed at the lack of truthful knowledge based reviews not only for this airplane, but for others like the CRJ 200 from Rollins.  

 

By the way, the crj 200 is horrible, nothing is correct.

 

I will gladly work with the developers if asked. 

As for this 757, please if nothing else, at least buy the Level D 767 for FSX, and learn how a FMS is supposed to work.  The 757/767 have the same type rating and same cockpit. At least do this if your not going to use real life experience to make sure your product actually models what it is supposed to.

 

When it comes to an airliner, the simulation is 90% about the systems, 10% everything else. When the systems do not work as they are supposed to, you no longer have a simulation, and much less something you can safely take online and fly on VATSIM during an event.

So please demand reviews from people with real world experience, it will force developers to actually go that extra mile.  If there is one thing that FSX has over X-plane, it is high quality addons.  If this was produced by PMDG or Level D, this post would not exist. Their products work like the real thing, and are tested to death before ever being released. 

 

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It would be the best to reports this and your interest in helping directly to flight factor.

 

Send them a mail 757support@flightfactor.aero

 

I am disappointed as well with this product, because its filled with errors and false system programming. I have already reported some issues regarding FMS and Autopilot, which partly cover your observation.

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Their products work like the real thing, and are tested to death before ever being released.

 

Welcome rb211!

 

Well, the times we're crossing make even your observation  about PMDG stuff simply not true :-/

 

I'm still waiting for the correction of that ( all but realistic ) implementation of the C* U law in their 777.

 

Certainly we can't compare the complexity, functionality, etc...,of a PMDG product with any airliner presently available for X-Plane 10, but the truth is that, even PMDG has it's quirks, and that pitch law implementation of the "Boeing FBW" is  really really lousy...


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"When you try to manually enter in a new fix in flight, I would get the Invalid entry"

 

I had an issue yesterday whilst receiving instruction from a real airline pilot. We were fling from EGNX to EGSS. He was flying the captiansim 757 in FSX and I was in the FF 757 Professional. Entering the new fix worked for him and threw up the invalid entry message for me.

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The cockpit textures also need work.  The center post is to narrow and the gauges to big.


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Any developers reaction regarding those correct issues?

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In my discussions with support at Flight Factor, they seem to believe that nothing works perfectly in the real world either and therefore what they have modeled is correct. When bugs are reported, they claim that the same issues are often encountered in the real 757.  So it must be an extremely advanced simulation. ;)

 

However, I find that it works pretty well for the most part and there isn't another 757 that is better. And both the 777 and 757 seem to get regular updates so that is always good.


Jim Shield

Cybersecurity Specialist

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@rcboffa

I think the whole "that issue would happen in the real thing", for the most part (unfortunately) is a go-to phrase to excuse any POSSIBLE errors with their plane. That is very agitating to me and a childish thing for a professional add-on developer to do when so many people throw their money at them. 

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First of all, thanks for pointing out these rather glaring issues. It's not often that we see someone with real-world experience in an add-on plane willing to evaluate and examine it closely from an objective standpoint.

 

 

 


The replies I read from the developers  in other threads about the Vnav bug tell a very sad tale. They expect you to follow procedures exactly or don't be surprised if it does not work.  What they are really hinting at is that their coding is sub par, and it's not their fault.

 

On the other hand, another user posted a detailed list of over 50 bugs he's found, and the developer has replied to the thread and said they are currently being looked at: http://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?/forums/topic/109362-bugs-i-so-far-found-edit/&page=1 I encourage you to make an account on the org and post these problems there so that the developer has a good chance of seeing them, or at the very least send them an email or support ticket. In the post I linked above, the developer says that he is willing to work with experienced people, so I'm sure they'd gladly take your advice. 

 

I agree that this is a flawed product, and they seem to have put a lot of effort into eyecandy rather than deep systems modeling (which, personally, I don't have much of a problem with). I think there are two things you need to keep in mind when criticizing the product. Firstly, when the developer responds to issues users have found (such as with the case of VNAV bugs), the developer is taking the position that the user is missing something or not operating it properly, which makes sense as the person giving support can't know exactly what situation the aircraft was in, or if the user is leaving something out. Every sim company does this. On these forums you'll find many problems that were misidentified as 'bugs' but were actually just a problem with the user. Of course, that isn't to say that there isn't something wrong with the VNAV, just that the developer's attitude shouldn't necessarily be construed as flippant, protective, or dismissive.  Also, the developer and his staff are Russian, so the language barrier might contribute to some misunderstandings. 

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I find it all unfortunate. Simulating a real and complex thing is hard. Putting something in front of the public is harder. Dealing with customers is tougher still.

 

Do only two of those three things well and you've got something less than a fully realized product. Which can be all right, too. Just make up for it in other ways, like bringing developer and customer together in a community and giving each a feeling of investment in the other.

 

Fall short on that, though, while charging big money for a product, and you've got a recipe for unmet expectations and ill-will. Hope that's not the case, here.

 

best,

 

Marshall 

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Some of the blame can be placed on beta testers.  The whole idea behind having them is for them to extensively test the aircraft, find bugs and allow the developer to correct them before it goes to market.  The aircraft is not only as good as the designer, but the testing that follows.  If bugs aren't found in beta test, how does the developer really know if there are problems?

 

I am sorry if I sound condescending but we as the end user, do expect the aircraft to function properly.  I am sure I am not alone when I say that nothing is more aggravating than purchasing an aircraft (a high dollar one at that), installing it, setting it up, flying it and coming across errors that completely ruin the experience.  So, in turn, we come back to the forums and point out the errors, only to be met with the boilerplate responses like "we are aware of it and will address in the next update".  Sorry, but that's getting old.

 

Extensive and proper beta testing of products prior to sale is a great idea, if only executed properly.  

 

I am relatively new to X-Plane, but not to flight simulation.  I've made my share of mistakes in purchasing hyped up products, only to be let down by sub-par texturing, bad lighting, incomplete systems and poor performance.  I wish i could still say they were all lessons learned only because I've made that mistake more than once.  When I switched to X-Plane, I'd hoped to get a "fresh start", exploring a new avenue of flight simulation that was more accurate and on the whole, I do, but with regards to 3rd party products, I have to tread very lightly.  People get excited when a new product is being developed, and they get pressured to release it sooner than planned, which they tend to do, and thus we get an incomplete product or one riddled with issues.  This is not to say that the FF757 is yet another of those products because I have yet to invest in this, but I'm keeping my distance until the community can report honest assessments and reviews of the product.


Engage, research, inform and make your posts count! -Jim Morvay

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Isn't this thread over 2+ years old, probably not that relevant on the current state of the Aircraft.

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In my opinion FF is the x-plane equivalent of captain sim... They seem to be more interested in appearing to simulate a lot of systems when the reality is none of them work correctly.

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Mike Avallone

9900k@5.0,Corsair H115i cooler,ASUS 2080TI,GSkill 32GB pc3600 ram, 2 WD black NVME ssd drives, ASUS maximus hero MB

 

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Isn't this thread over 2+ years old, probably not that relevant on the current state of the Aircraft.

Woah, I didn't even notice the date. I thought the issues OP noted were a little bit odd as I didn't notice them myself, but I guess it makes sense as he was talking about v1. Geez... I need to start paying closer attention! 

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