Are my service-based failures working properly?

[NEXTGENERIC 1]

Generally, I fly one UAL livery of the PMDG 737-800 (N76517), and I'm trying to figure out whether or not my service-based failures are working.

 

In short, I've put hundreds of hours into real-time simming with this aircraft, and I've yet to experience a service-based failure. The feature is enabled, I've made sure of that from the get-go.

 

In addition, every time I start a flight, oil quantity is at 100%. I'm thinking something's not quite right.

 

Does starting with the 'Long' panel state interfere with service-based failures, because I usually do start with it.

 

Thanks in advance for any feedback/help/insight.

 

 

[kevinh 409]

I don't think quantities like oil quantity are part of service based failures and if you always start from the same preset panel state it will never deplete. Best to save a panel state after each flight and restart from that, then any oil depletion will be carried forward. The failures should work regardless of which panel state you choose, as the hours are maintained seperately for each livery. Long is fine, I use Short with no problem

 

If you want to see whether the system is running properly take a look at the aircraft .ini file for that livery, e.g. N76517.INI. At the end there are a lot of entries for run timers. One for each possible failure and one for each aircraft system. If service based failures is working they will show your total flight time (in seconds) in that livery (or the flight time since last service). The first number is the timer, the second (where present) is related to how the failure is triggered.

 

The ini files are located in this folder, where FSX is your root FSX folder:

 

FSX\PMDG\PMDG 737 NGX\Aircraft

[NEXTGENERIC 1]

Hi Kevin,

 

This information is very helpful. I will review the .ini when I am next at the computer. Thanks very much!

[downscc 1,327]

I also do as Kevin recommended. Each trip concludes at the gate with pax deboarding and the scenario is saved. Next trip from that location starts with that saved scenario and airframe. I include in the comments field of the saved scenario the origin and each time that airframe is flown a new origin is added to the comments. This provides a clue as to how much that airframe has been used, I guess you could add flight durations to the comments..., in fact I might start doing that.

[777cap 12]

Real aircrafts will go through hundreds of hours without coming across any major failures.(things like bulbs being replaced might be a more common occurrence).

So unless you do something incredibly foolish to put your aircraft under unneeded stress. Don't expect a big bang or boosh. Instead try doing something foolish.. Like a hard landing.. And see what happens.

H.M

[77west 139]

One caveat of re-using a saved flight is panel state corruption, you need to keep an eye on that.

 

If you really want to speed up the failure rate, you can manually edit the txt file that keeps track of hours, but this would be at your own risk and possibly not allowed by PMDG, although I would think it under the same banner as adding a new aircraft.cfg entry.

[kevinh 409]

Saving and reusing a panel state isn't likely to be a problem unless there is something wrong with the sim load you are saving. It's just a text file saving the current value of specified sim parameters. It's possible data might be corrupted during the process of course. That can happen just as easily when you save a new panel state.

 

If a state does gets corrupt then delete it and start again from a preset one. Just treat it as an unplanned service.

 

It's possible to accelerate the hours manually by editing the file but you could find yourself with large numbers of failures at once when you load the flight. Hopefully PMDG will add the 777's failure time acceleration to the NGX at the next big update.