Sudden power loss during climb and electrical problem

[Stingray 1]

forget about that AFE! only useful AFE stage maybe the take off phase but thats it. Captain of the ship by A2A is a lot better. To be on descent with a fixed 26 MAP setting specially with a very light plane is no fun really! even in level flight no speeds below 200 knots. I know this is a radial piston engine problem at this time also with the A2A connie but there you have definetely more options to handle the throttles.

[downscc 1,327]

I am having a hard time following this thread...seems to be at least three different problems in the mix. Not sure if OP is still here?

[Don t moderate me this way 882]

17 minutes ago, MatzeH84 said:

The AFE doesn't manage the fuel at all from what I saw.

On the last flight I did I ran the main tanks dry during cruise, but had enough in the alternates. What does the FE on approach? Switches to the emtpy mains.. great stuff.

You're correct on both counts: No mentioning anywhere that the AFE manages fuel in the cruise, but he just switched to my dry main tanks during the approach!  

Looks like that guy could stand a lil' bit tweaking from PMDG ...   ;-)

Oliver Märtens (Maertens)

[Stingray 1]

You are right, mixing to much in this thread.

1. Sudden engine power loss during climb out without using the AFE

2. Elec loss during low RPM on the Ground.

these are the main issues. All other maybe in a new thread. But I dont think so, cause I am the only one with these problems.

[scandinavian13 5,192]

4 minutes ago, Stingray said:

Sudden engine power loss during climb out without using the AFE

Probably because you're damaging the engines in how you're operating them.

4 minutes ago, Stingray said:

Elec loss during low RPM on the Ground.

The gens have a low range. Just about every prop plane out there has one.

Pretty irresponsible to immediately write things off as bugs and pointedly accuse us of wrongdoing before you run through a few cursory checks. It's one thing to wonder and ask. It's quite another to cast aspersions without vetting. Please avoid this.

Full names in the forum - first and last.

[Stingray 1]

 

God day Mr. Rodgers,

even a publisher like PMDG has to fight with a little critism. I own all PMDG airplanes and I am happy with all of them. The DC-6 is in my opinion not the knwon standard. But okay, I did not say that this must be a bug or two, but this engine behaviour in my case without using the AFE is strange. I watched several times what the AFE does and what might be my fault. Could not find any differences but without AFE I have these sudden power losses.

Elec. Problem with the GEN, could not see what I can do wrong there. Batterie switch plane, ground power off and engine GEN on. Thats it. Below prox. 1400 RPM the red GEN lights come on and all elec is lost till kicking in again with applying throttle.

Lastly the AFE actions and the POH recomendations are not the same and differ from each other, specially concurning engine start. It must be okay to talk about these problems sorry

Sincerely

Peter Schlotfeldt

[xender 459]

And sure it is, but the problem is that you're pointing fingers and accusing. Do you want to find faults or do you want to get to the bottom of what's happening and start enjoying the product you paid?

If i had an issue that no one else has, i will be questioning myself, not the product. There's something you're doing wrong somewhere. That's what was happening to me: I was using a lean mixture at high altitude and that damaged my engines. That was a  "Sudden power loss" for me until i figured it out doing test flights and reading the manual.

Read the section named "recommended operating procedures" there you will find a step by step to operate the aircraft yourself without AFE, Read that. And limit your climbs to 10,000 or so for now. test that.

[MatzeH84 81]

Eh.. sorry, but using lean mixture during cruise is exactly what you should do, that's what it's there for. Otherwise your fuel burn will be beyond evil. Contrary to smaller engines with manual leaning, the auto-rich and auto-lean positions will keep the engine within safe limits, as long as you observe the power limitations for lean mixture.

[xender 459]

Can you point me to where i can find those power limitations with lean mixture? If im at 20,000 and switch to using a lean mixture my engines wont last 5 minutes before being damaged 

[MatzeH84 81]

Had to search for myself, because I could swear I would have read some hard numbers on this.. however the only thing I found was to avoid rapid engine acceleration.

I used auto-lean on all flights I did so far with no problems, up to 22k feet. Be sure automixture within the sim is disabled? What kind of damage are you receiving? Keep in mind if you lean the mixture, the combustion will be hotter, thus resulting in higher CHT, which must be accounted for with the cowl flaps.

[xender 459]

It looks like my problem with the mixture was the engines rpm. Before i was using 2500, now im using 2300 and everything seems to be ok. I found the charts in the end of the manual. By reducing to 2300 rpm from 2500 the improvement was so noticeable that the vibrations ceased. Before it was vibrating so bad that the needles jumped everywhere

[downscc 1,327]

9 minutes ago, xender said:

I found the charts in the end of the manual

Uh yeah, that might have been the problem. 

[PMDG777 231]

5 hours ago, Stingray said:

 

Elec. Problem with the GEN, could not see what I can do wrong there. Batterie switch plane, ground power off and engine GEN on. Thats it. Below prox. 1400 RPM the red GEN lights come on and all elec is lost till kicking in again with applying throttle.

There is another switch for battery. That switch just selects between what power source you want to use. Its below and to the right of the Plane/Ground Power switch, there are 4 switches to the right of it. I think it's labelled "Bat & ...." (can't remember what the dots are)

[scandinavian13 5,192]

5 hours ago, Stingray said:

But okay, I did not say that this must be a bug or two

You didn't?

You definitely said:

"In my opinion there is a huge problem with this addon. Very dissapointed about PMDG, sorry. Fast return to my A2A aircraft. From the beginning on I had my doubts, cause everything is turning around this AFE and thats it. Only standard FSX programing and this is the result. Missing aircraft state remember or dimmable lights, okay, but this engine and battery issues, that is a shame sorry."

All of that very clearly points to the plane as the cause of the issues, and doesn't at all allow any possibility that it is your setup, or your operation of the aircraft.

Criticism is all well and good...provided it is well-founded. Criticism without foundation, however, is not. If you're burning up engines or the plane isn't behaving how you expect it to because you're operating it improperly, criticism of us isn't well-founded, and is misleading others who may not know better. Sorry, I'd be a little more forgiving if you'd made even a slight allowance that it wasn't caused by us, but to have an issue and then immediately go from 0 to "PMDG's fault, I'm disappointed, I'm going back to other add-ons," is irresponsible, particularly in this circumstance 

Please be more careful in the future. 

[RonnieDuck 10]

Dear captains

I had simmular problems as discribed above. Problems with idle, engine kept running rought and lost of elec power. After take off I had a lost of power. 

So what did I do, like a real FE I started to read the meters. I notice that my fuel flow and pressure was very low, even with pumps at HIGH. 

Looking at the mixture handles, they where all on auto rich. Very strange!

Than I looked at my hardware.

I am using saitek throttle levers. 4 for engine throttles, 1 for RPM and 1 for....... Mixture.

The saitek mixture lever, I don't use it because I use the one in the VC. When I moved my saitek mixture lever, al problems disappeard.

After this I clicked enable auto mixture in FSX. I do not no if this is the right setting for the PMDG model, but it works!

I tried using my Saitek mixture lever. this works fine in auto rich but not in auto lean.

Hope this helps!!

 

For Stingray. I really am an A2A flyer. especially the connie. Yes the A2A aircrafts works different. But this PMDG DC-6 is a beauty! Very!

For your battery switch problem I say Read the manual!

For the AFE from PMDG I say, if your use to fly A2A, this bird is a piece of cake, no need to use the AFE.

Dimmable lights,.... are you kidding? Come on, the bird is for flying, not for playing with light knobs!

 

Regards Ronald