Huge airspeed loss passing from day to dusk! Help pls.

[thetford569 104]

OK More News!

Are any of you using the Airfield Lights Toolbox from Don Grovestine?  It comes with his CYYJ airport if you have that add-on.  Anyway....I disabled it and no longer had the issue between day and dusk.  My guess is there is lots of SimConnect communication going on at the time of day/dusk transition and it is causing the aircraft to lose speed and spin/dive.  I am not sure but that is my guess.  If you don't have this add-on but have another that possibly passes alot of SimConnect data try disabling it and see what happens.  This worked for me it seems however.  I will send a message to Don and see what his thoughts are.

Brandon

[gboz 157]

2 hours ago, thetford569 said:

. Flying between day and dusk is not working.  I have reported all of this at LM forums...

What definition of dusk are we using here?
Civil, Nautical or Astro? Or is the time it happens a bit more random?

Thanks,
gb.

[thetford569 104]

5 minutes ago, gboz said:

What definition of dusk are we using here?
Civil, Nautical or Astro? Or is the time it happens a bit more random?

Thanks,
gb.

Basically I was setting the time to a few minutes before P3D says "dusk" in the time settings window.  As you transition over that time period is when I was experiencing the loss of control issue.  But as I said disabling the airfield lights toolbox solved the problem for me.  I just flew between day and dusk now for well over an hour without any issues.  I am in touch with the developer Don Grovestine to work on the issue with him.

Brandon

[Berthin Hudon 0]

Hi Brandon

Tanks for validating the prob.   Today.

Today, I made many test flights,  KMIA-CYUL  and LFPG-LFBO.  One on each  in the 4 seasons  with addon sceneries and without any addon scenery.  For each flight, the prob appeared  exactly when the day/dusk change took place. I took off about 30 minutes before  the dusk and  at the minute the day change to dusk  (as per "time and season" page  on P3d v4,  the prob. occured

I hope you will have more luck than me on P3d forums

 

Berthin

[Berthin Hudon 0]

Hi have CYYJ 2017  but it ws unchecked in scenery lib. for all my flights today as I was not flyng in that area.  For the "Airfield Lights Toolbox", I do not remmber seeing it or using it :-(

3 hours ago, thetford569 said:

 

 

[thetford569 104]

2 hours ago, Berthin Hudon said:

Hi have CYYJ 2017  but it ws unchecked in scenery lib. for all my flights today as I was not flyng in that area.  For the "Airfield Lights Toolbox", I do not remmber seeing it or using it :-(

 

I was not flying in that area either.  The Airfield Lights Toolbox is abbreviated as AFTL and it's enabled in your addons menu.  I went to my add ons menu and disabled it.  It's located in your documents folder under Prepar3D v4 Add-Ons in the AFLT for P3D folder.  It's activated via an add-on xml file in that folder.  You can disable it from the menu to keep it from loading.  If you Alt-Tab your sim window and the add-on is loaded you will see it's window because it loads whenever you start P3D.

Anyway, if you chose to use P3D lighting when installing CYYJ then AFTL is activated and starts with P3D.  It dynamically controls the lighting for CYYJ but also any other airports that may use it.  Just because you are not near an airport that uses it doesn't mean anything.  It's still active and communicating through SimConnect.  The solution for me for now was to disable it.  You could also configure CYYJ to use default airport lighting to get lights back at CYYJ if you use it.  Because with AFTL de-activated there will no longer be lights at CYYJ.

Hopefully Don can figure out a solution.  I've been in touch with him and will try to help him figure it out.  I am 99% sure that it's the culprit because I have done several test flights now with it disabled and no longer have the stall/spin issue.

Brandon

[Berthin Hudon 0]

Thanks a lot Brandon for your  precise explanation.  Of course, I have AFTL and  has always wonder what it was and was too lazy to do a search for it    More, each and every tie I exited  P3d,  I got a message window saying  "ALFT (exe) stop workng........."  I do not know if it would be usefull for you or Don but I have images of the error message and if you want them,  just  tell me how to send them to you .  I will deactivate ALFT today and fly.

Berthin

[Berthin Hudon 0]

Hi Brandon

Did a flight today after disabling  AFLT,  KRDU-CYHX,   Passing from day to dusk and dusk to night without any prob.

Yhanks for your help,

Merci pour votre aide

Berthin

[thetford569 104]

For those interested here is Don's response to this issue.  He emailed back and forth to me very quickly and offered great support!  I'm sure he will fix this in due time but for now the solution is to disable the AFLT application and either use no lights or go back to default airport lights.

-------------

Thanks for letting me know. 

 

I have done a quick check and can repeat your symptoms.  The problem is that when the lights come on (at dusk), Simconnect can't find one or more of the lights and goes into a loop looking for it/them instead on looking after the user aircraft.

I've got a couple of other issues that will have to take priority over CYYJ.  But I will  investigate further ASAP.  In the meantime either fly with AFLT disabled (you won't see any lights at CYYJ) or reinstall CYYJ with stock lighting.

[jabloomf1230 2,445]

Ahhh SimConnect... half angel half devil. As users pile on more 3rd party add-ons that use SimConnect, these conflicts seem to be getting more common. Just one tiny bug and the SimConnect channel gets flooded.

This problem was originally posted on the official LM forum and I suggested to the user to turn on SimConnect error logging.

[ErichB 3,642]

On 11/26/2017 at 10:54 PM, scottb613 said:

Hi Folks,

RE: AS4

Been trying to fly approaches into Block Island KBID all day - massive (plane falling out of the sky) wind shear on approach (@ transition to feet dry) to 28... Airspeed goes from 80 to 0 in the blink of an eye along with the freefall... Never had this problem before... Odd...

Regards,
Scott

 

I did a long haul over the weekend from MSP to AMS in the 747.  When arriving at the AMS TMA  i flew into an area of  (red) precipitation (yes, I know)  But I figured everyone else is following the STAR, so I'd just go with it instead of being that person on VATSIM trying to be an word not allowed and requesting something contrary to what everyone else if experiencing.  Well, my airspeed went from 220 knots to 320 knots in about 3 seconds  - struggled to reduced and maintain the controller assigned speed of 220 knots.   Then the stick shaker would sound and the aircraft was borderline stalling.  Overall, extremely difficult to control, and after about a minute i figured this was just a very extreme and poorly simulated weather scenario.  It seemed highly unrealistic.    It was a particularly busy arrival as AMS were running an event.  So eventually I had to ask the controller to vector me out of the STAR so I could get the aircraft under control (he was excellent) - which resulted in me having to shut down AS16.and set P3D 'clear' conditions so that I could land.  I've never done that before.  No-one else reported particularly extreme weather conditions being experienced and of course AS16 (or whatever program is being used) would represent the weather differently to some extent from person to person.  I think had that been a real flight, there would have been quite a few injuries reported. 

Real pilots. @iwebber   What are your views on extreme weather and effects on an aircraft that large under similar conditions - even though you probably would have avoided it.  I was pretending.

 

[iwebber 207]

44 minutes ago, ErichB said:

What are your views on extreme weather and effects on an aircraft that large under similar conditions - even though you probably would have avoided it.  I was pretending.

You've proved why we avoid it, it sounds not far off from what has been reported when severe or extreme turbulence is encountered (knowingly or otherwise). I've heard guys say it goes from calm to chaos in under 10 seconds. Airspeed can jump about from Vmo to stick shaker in seconds and the aircraft becomes practically uncontrollable, getting your hands on the controls (or the seat belt signs) becomes impossible as does reading the instruments, pretty much what you encountered. I'm not sure I can recall an incident where it happened that low down but we've had a few incidents in the cruise with aircraft being spat out around 10,000ft below where they started.

220kts can be an awkward speed in the jumbo, usually just less than minimum clean so you'll have some flap out but there's often not much margin, particularly from the low speed buffet (which is more dangerous). If it's rough, don't be shy about avoiding red returns (by a reasonable margin if it's big and try to stay upwind of it) and don't worry about being the only one, obviously don't make a big song and dance about avoiding every radar return but if it's red (or flashing), no one will criticise you for avoiding it, wherever you are.

I've yet to come across a controller who would try to force us to fly into an area we weren't happy flying into and I've yet to fly with anyone who'd let them. I don't know what VATSIM's like but it would be more unrealistic to have a controller refuse your requests for a "heading xxx to avoid" than what you experienced at the hands of the simulated CB.

I know FS can be a bit wayward in it's depiction of weather and it's effects on the aircraft but in this instance, it sounds like it wasn't far off.

HTH

Ian

[scottb613 1,188]

Nice explanation Ian...

Regards,
Scott

 

[ErichB 3,642]

10 minutes ago, iwebber said:

You've proved why we avoid it, it sounds not far off from what has been reported when severe or extreme turbulence is encountered (knowingly or otherwise).

Fair enough.    I've always thought FSX/P3D's depiction of turbulence was dubious, but good to know that it plausibly simulated the scenario.  Well framed.

thanks

 

[gadgets 0]

Brandon just made me aware of this issue.  I can duplicate it, but have no idea what's causing it.  I will investigate ASAP.

In the meantime, either disable AFLT (there will be an icon in your task bar) after starting P3D or re-install CYYJ using stock lights..

Don