Yesterday (10/10/2016) I purchased the Phenom 100 for FSX Steam Edition from Carenado's online store and while I'm loving this aircraft, when I first tried manually starting it up I was obliged to spend a considerable amount of time debugging a faulty center MFD. After reviewing the accompanying checklists and documentation, uninstalling and re-installing the product, I finally learned (online) that the avionics switch must be enabled for the MFD, and backup CDI, to function properly. Say what?

 

As the checklist makes no reference to the avionics switch nor is there one to be found in the cockpit, it must be turned on via a keyboard command. 

 

Turning on the avionics via keyboard is fine, but why was an expensive ($40 USD) product released with such a glaring omission?

 

My apologies if Carenado addressed this issue in the documentation, but thus far I've found none. I'm sure your time is valuable, but so is mine.

 

Thank you for your time.

Maybe this quote will give you a clue:

 

For example, the Phenom has no avionics master switch. Amazing. But if you think for a moment, why do you need an avionics master? There are no conventional gauges or instruments to look at, so the three big displays of the Garmin system that Embraer calls Prodigy must be up and working to know anything about the status of the airplane. So the entire Prodigy system comes on with the battery switches.

 

So the problem is you loaded the FSX Phenom 100 after loading a previous aircraft that had the avionics switch off.

 

Todd

Thanks Todd. Indeed, I start all my aircraft cold & dark, and with the Phenom I have since learned that it has no avionics switch for the reason you describe.

 

What I'm a tad unhappy about is that Carenado created an (expensive) aircraft model that while it omits an avionics switch as in the real thing, it otherwise makes no allowance for this fact. As a result, flipping the battery switch in the cockpit lights up the MFDs, but a flip of a phantom avionics switch is yet required. Whether this is a limitation inherent in the FSX engine and/or an oversight by Carenado, I would have sincerely appreciated a heads up.

 

As the generally happy owner of the majority of aircraft produced for X-Plane by Carenado (and Alabeo) I know that detailed documentation has never been their strong suit; guess I was hoping things might be a tad different for aircraft produced for FSX.