Aerosoft CRJ Available for P3D v5

[Prpn 366]

So, I figured, what the heck... I fly the thing in real life and since I got the CRJ X for free (was beta tester) the upgrade price might be worth it. Quick test flight around and airport I know well.

On the plus side, it really has improved in graphics and overall ease of use with the EFB. Sounds are pretty good. Haven't done a deep dive into the systems or failures, so can't say much about that. But...

LNAV is still a dog. Weird leg segments being drawn on the ND when starting a direct to a point, the plane still doesn't know how to properly anticipate a turn and how much bank is used. It undershot a less than 90 degree turn to base, attempted to get back to the leg, not anticipating the next turn to final so it overshot that... The real life CRJ is not exactly the smartest plane around, and will occasionally overshoot or undershoot, though that is usually limited to situations with strong wind. With the Fair Weather theme conditions it would have had zero issues.

Nav-to-nav is not properly implemented. Yes, it sets the frequency and course etc, but that is not actually part of nav-to-nav though. We had a couple of planes without nav-to-nav capability but they still tune the frequency and course provided you have set up an approach in the FMS. It did actually capture the ILS though. But, the nav source indication never switched from white needle (FMS active, with LOC1 armed in blue) to the green needle (LOC1 active). That is the actual nav-to-nav part that just makes it so you don't have really have to switch AP modes to HDG, switch nav source manually, and then switch back to NAV/APPR. So it is some sort of half baked implementation. 

Just for fun, the speed limitation placard still has a wrong speed limit indicated for flap 20, something that I reported before even the first public release of the CRJ X. It is really unworthy of the "Professional" name with these kind of issues, let alone worthy of €75. LNAV issues are not something that just real pilots will notice, which could be argued for the nav-to-nav stuff or the speed placard. Yeah, it's a good looking regional jet and there are not many around for P3D unfortunately. But just think hard before spending this amount of money.

[micstatic 4,319]

These days aerosoft would find a way to fix the incorrect flap placard on Lockheed Martin 

[GEKtheReaper 364]

@Prpn since you already were BETA testing the CRJ X and you are a real pilot, you shold open a topic with your findings and I think that Hans has an open ear for reports comming from real pilots.

I completely agree with your findings. I reported myself a dozen of times that the plane does not anticipate turns etc. I can't figure it out why it is so dificult to "draw" an arc between 2 legs of known angle and known speed. Including the wind component should also not be that difficult but if you can't get it to work with no wind at all.....

Sharp leg turns are mostly be found during SID or STARS and I started to fly those at speed around 180Kts max.

[flycln 435]

8 hours ago, GEKtheReaper said:

@Prpn since you already were BETA testing the CRJ X and you are a real pilot, you shold open a topic with your findings and I think that Hans has an open ear for reports comming from real pilots.

But that's what I meant the other day when I said I put zero faith in Hans. These issues aren't new. LNAV has been a dog (as @Prpn put it) ever since the first version of the CRJ was released. This was several years ago now and it's still quite... lacking (to put it mildly). Many people have already reported it again and again. If Hans knew how to fix these things, I'm sure he would have ages ago. I just feel there's a genuine lack of skill there, as sad as this sounds.

Even simple things like the super laggy FMC input in the original release of the CRJ Pro were just bizarre. He basically claimed it's a P3D issue but hey: No other FMC of any other developer has that problem. And lookie, now he's finally fixed it in the latest update. So it was bad coding on his part after all, huh?

I think for the most part people have just given up reporting things, I know I have.

The one time I dared even ask if a fix was on the way for a very common issue (the GPU avail light), he accused me of just coming to the forum to cause trouble. I mean, seriously, I literally just asked if there's a fix on the way, and he said I'm just trying to cause trouble because I hadn't reported the issue myself. Well, yeah, doesn't mean I don't have it as well and can't ask about it? I was just flabbergasted to be perfectly honest. That kind of communication is appalling.

I genuinely want to like the plane and I have no issues with Aerosoft in general whatsoever. But man, the CRJ... is just not good, despite its potential.

Oh, and about nav-to-nav: What @Prpn wrote is what I meant. It does autotune but it doesn't switch from FMS needles to LOC/VOR needles automatically.

Edited July 11, 2020 by flycln

[Prpn 366]

9 hours ago, GEKtheReaper said:

@Prpn since you already were BETA testing the CRJ X and you are a real pilot, you shold open a topic with your findings and I think that Hans has an open ear for reports comming from real pilots.

I wrote a long post there now. But not holding my breath. Previous experiences with Hans have been less than positive. For example, he once claimed it was a fact that the service ceiling for the CRJ700 is FL390 because some Bombardier performance document didn't have any data beyond that. With multiple pilots telling him that we flew the darn thing at its actual service ceiling (FL410) he still stuck to his guns instead of maybe considering the data he had was incomplete, and he left us unable to even put FL410 into the FMS. He is simply not a pleasant person to interact with (online and about this subject at least). 

Also fun, when I posted here on Avsim shortly after public release of the CRJ X and stated my opinion about the build that was now public and not under any sort of NDA, one of the persons closely involved with development found it necessary to ask an admin to get my account banned here because he did not recognize my username as a beta tester and thought I was spreading lies...  When I went to the beta forum to clarify, it was flat-out refused to make any attempt to rectify that ban despite that person admitting being wrong 💩. I hold no hard feelings, but these are the kind of people you are dealing with involved in this specific addon at Aerosoft.

And it is a shame, as the CRJ is a really fun plane in real life and I'd love an actual Professional quality version in P3D. 

[NightOfDreams 370]

I can live with not being able to fly up to FL410 and sharp turns, but the biggest issue for me is the slow frame rates with the CRJ Professional when I get a consistent 30 FPS with any other aircraft, even some with all settings maxed out. It seems like the gauges really impact the FPS for many users and Aerosoft can't figure out why that is.

Edited July 11, 2020 by NightOfDreams

[NightOfDreams 370]

On 7/10/2020 at 7:23 PM, Prpn said:

Yeah, it's a good looking regional jet and there are not many around for P3D unfortunately. But just think hard before spending this amount of money.

I like flying regional jet airliners into small airports. What other options are there really? Majestic Dash 8 sounds like a good plane but I like jets ... I guess I'll pick up an A319 or A320 eventually, though not entirely realistic either..

Edited July 11, 2020 by NightOfDreams

[micstatic 4,319]

12 minutes ago, NightOfDreams said:

I can live with not being able to fly up to FL410 and sharp turns, but the biggest issue for me is the slow frame rates with the CRJ Professional when I get a consistent 30 FPS with any other aircraft, even some with all settings maxed out. It seems like the gauges really impact the FPS for many users and Aerosoft can't figure out why that is.

that's my beef with this airplane.  I can get a smooth 30 with any other plane in my hangar.  Fire on the battery with this plane and it has stutters.  Panning around the VC is not smooth either.  

[JRBarrett 3,070]

8 hours ago, flycln said:

Even simple things like the super laggy FMC input in the original release of the CRJ Pro were just bizarre. He basically claimed it's a P3D issue but hey: No other FMC of any other developer has that problem. And lookie, now he's finally fixed it in the latest update. So it was bad coding on his part after all, huh?

There is nothing “bizarre” about it. The real FMS 4200 is extremely laggy when processing inputs - especially when building a route. If you hated the lag in the sim, you certainly would not like the FMS in the actual airplane. The Proline 4 FMS was designed in 1989, and runs on a CPU equivalent to an 80286 with a clock speed of just a few MHz.

I have been a participant on the CRJ public and beta forums since the product began development and don’t recall any discussion where Hans claimed the lag was due to a “P3D” problem. As I recall the lag was deliberately programmed in the initial release specifically to emulate the way the real FMS reacts, and was changed because users preferred it to be faster.

I was also involved in testing several builds trying to get to the bottom of the GPU light not illuminating. This was something that did not affect all users. It only happened on my own system in one of the very early versions, and I could never get it to happen in any of the later releases, nor could Hans on any of his development computers. It’s one thing to fix a bug that can be easily reproduced, but much more difficult when it only affects a certain subset of users.

I think it ultimately turned out to be a problem with the cockpit model. One thing to understand is that Hans programs the aircraft systems, but not the model or any of the graphics - that is done by someone else at Aerosoft, and that person (or persons) and Hans are not physically at the same location.

In the current release, one tester who is a real CRJ pilot pointed out (correctly) that the Mach Trim button on the center console is the wrong color when illuminated. Although it is a “bug” (albeit very minor) it’s not something Hans has any control over. He said that fixing it will require having the modeler recompile all the cockpit graphics. I assume it will be incorporated in a future update.

I believe a similar issue exists in relation to the incorrect flap speed placard in the CRJ-900. AFAIK, for simplicity’s sake, there is just one cockpit model that is shared by all the CRJ variants. The flap limit placard would be correct for the 700, but not the 900.

Yes, “fixing it” would be easy enough from a graphics standpoint, but it would require having one cockpit model for the 700, and a different one for the 900. Since the whole simulation is currently designed to use a single cockpit model, for all variants, who knows what complications that would induce? At the very least, it would increase the size of the overall product. Is it worth it to go to all that trouble to fix an extremely minor error that probably 99 percent of end users would never notice?

 

[flycln 435]

2 hours ago, JRBarrett said:

I have been a participant on the CRJ public and beta forums since the product began development and don’t recall any discussion where Hans claimed the lag was due to a “P3D” problem.

We're not talking about the same thing then. It's not the computing that was laggy but the very input that was laggy after each key press. Hans explicitly claimed it's because of the super-low screen update rate of the FMC he used to save performance (I'm happy to provide a link to his post). That had nothing to do with trying to make an accurate reproduction of the real thing. Somehow other aircraft didn't need such a terrible input lag to perform.

Like others I also have less than smooth performance when looking around the VC by the way.

These are just examples anyway. Many have been cited in this thread (LNAV, nav-to-nav, etc.). I also don't really care about their internal communication and project management issues.

Edited July 12, 2020 by flycln

[Dreamflight767 312]

How about we start with the basics...like getting the thing to follow LNAV and intercept/fly ARCS.

Both of which were supposed to be addressed...as always..."in the next update."

Everybody craps on CS but I have better experience with them then Aersoft.  Aerosoft is just another Carenado/Blackbox/Wilco.

[JRBarrett 3,070]

2 hours ago, flycln said:

We're not talking about the same thing then. It's not the computing that was laggy but the very input that was laggy after each key press. Hans explicitly claimed it's because of the super-low screen update rate of the FMC he used to save performance (I'm happy to provide a link to his post). That had nothing to do with trying to make an accurate reproduction of the real thing. Somehow other aircraft didn't need such a terrible input lag to perform.

Like others I also have less than smooth performance when looking around the VC by the way.

These are just examples anyway. Many have been cited in this thread (LNAV, nav-to-nav, etc.). I also don't really care about their internal communication and project management issues.

Sorry - I thought you were referring to the processing delay after entering a waypoint. In the real FMS, there is a noticeable lag between upselecting a waypoint from the scratch pad to when it registers.

But, I’ve never seen any noticeable lag on FMS key presses in any versions of the CRJ from the very earliest iterations of the Pre-Pro CRJ-X. I don’t doubt that you were affected by the problem, but I’ve never seen it, and I have logged a LOT of hours in it since it first came out.

LNAV is a lot better than before, but I agree that it still needs work. I was able to duplicate one reported issue where the aircraft suddenly turned away from the nav track midway through a very long (361 mile) leg, but in general, I have seen no serious LNAV problems in recent versions, other than a tendency to bank excessively when changing course.

[Prpn 366]

Thread on Aerosoft forum locked, with the usual attitude from Hans. Tried another simple, straight forward flight...

 

[NightOfDreams 370]

57 minutes ago, Prpn said:

Tried another simple, straight forward flight...

 

That's happened to me at least once, I think when selecting a landing runway. I just hit the sync heading button, heading hold, then enter direct-to the next waypoint and back to nav mode. Have completed 27 flights and it doesn't happen very often for me. 

[flycln 435]

2 hours ago, Prpn said:

Thread on Aerosoft forum locked, with the usual attitude from Hans. Tried another simple, straight forward flight...

 

Just read the thread on their forums. I’m just shaking my head here. 
 

A real life CRJ pilot gives valuable input and the dev complains about having his Sunday ruined but “fortunately” he can just lock the thread (as he put it).

It’s frankly amazing. Does Aerosoft not recognize that the guy is hurting their reputation in the community?

Edited July 12, 2020 by flycln