Aerosoft CRJ 550/700: can you recommend it?

[Gregg_Seipp 568]

2 minutes ago, Noel said:

Well, despite the fact I attended T&E Flight School for Ignorami, I somehow managed to have a near perfect flight and as you can see this funky messed up plane managed a 300 degree course change w/o disconnecting, which I surmise came from being very mindful of air speed as the turn approached only to lock on to the GS for a flawless ILS landing at Gdansk.  I'm so stoked I can add this to the AH2 fleet and despite a brief stall from not paying attention at one point which awarded me a flight reputation of 48% I'm pretty sure the next one might be better 😅.  I really do not have the knowledge of so many here but as this was now only my 4th flight in a totally unfamiliar plane I have to think part of the naysaying may have more to do w/ lack of patience and expectations of a less demanding environment than insurmmountable troubles w/ the plane even as it is. 

Sounds like a lot of fun was had.  I've sat in this plane asking myself what it is about it that's so immersive.  (I've had a lot of airplanes to compare it with.)  I've gone back to some of my old planes and tried to figure it out.  Maybe the sounds?  Certainly the visuals don't hurt.  Maybe it's just me.  Flying it at night is even better.  It's an airliner but doesn't quite feel like an airliner.  I, generally, don't even care for flying airliners!    In terms of the bugs, it's still a hoot if you have a backup plan if things get borked...welcome to the world of aviation...things break, they break like boats.  People ask for airplanes to have outages all the time...welp, here's one.  LOL.  🙂

[MadDog 353]

52 minutes ago, Noel said:

I have to think part of the naysaying may have more to do w/ lack of patience and expectations of a less demanding environment than insurmmountable troubles w/ the plane even as it is. 

Very well said!  There's no doubt that the CRJ is a challenge to fly; but for me, a successful flight awards a much greater sense of accomplishment than with a fully automated Airbus or Boeing.

Edited March 28, 2022 by MadDog

[Noel 4,503]

1 hour ago, MadDog said:

Very well said!  There's no doubt that the CRJ is a challenge to fly; but for me, a successful flight awards a much greater sense of accomplishment than with a fully automated Airbus or Boeing.

That is what is happening to me right now.  Since we very likely don't experience the real pressures involved in real world flying having a plane like this that is not a given does add some additional meaning/pressure, to succeed.  Plus, if you start from C&D you have put in several minutes of effort and you do not want that to go to waste!  Anyway, I hope this attitude continues for me.

[Noel 4,503]

I wonder if anyone has more insight into this:  another almost trouble-free flight KDEN>KJAC.  Perfect route following to landing.  I did enabled VNAV button but am not sure how to use it yet from the comments made so I need to read up on that piece.  I was just following ATC's calls during descent.  I had planned on a cruise alt of FL360 but she began choking and the climb rate dwindled to a paltry 200ft/m, and then speed could not be maintained.  This started around FL280 at which point I turned off both wing and cowl anti-ice and indeed this helped (wing piece presumably), but only got me to ~FL330 at which point speed started tanking again (didn't see another ice warning appear) and by the time I realized this wasn't going to get better and dialed in FL300 to commence descending, airspeed dropped again into the stall range.  After recovering and flying level at FL300 speed made it up to 290 and had more.  There was a 40mph headwind when this was happening.  Something about climbing is odd, and perhaps this is a defect, or...I wonder if the problem is my climb speed is too low.  I watched a video done 3 months ago which got me started and he was saying 160 was fine, but that is close to stall speed I realize now.  If you think this might be the issue (too low a climb speed as the thing needs a running jump to get up the hill perhaps) or maybe any another settings I might not be having set right in the plane during climb?

[jjeffreys 12]

Make sure that you are shifting IAS to MACH at around 0.74 as was stated earlier, then bump it up to around 0.77 as you get higher, then when you reach cruise set throttles to maintain around 0.80. You will continue to see your IAS depreciate but your ground speed will remain. As you climb the difference in air pressure gives you a lower IAS, that is why MACH is used. If you leave it at 290 IAS then the plane will continue to give you less VS to try to keep your speed up and you will eventually get to a point that it will no longer climb. At FL360, 290 IAS may be an overspeed, I can't remember but it will be close. 

I love the CRJ, I fly it almost every night, yes it sometimes has issues but it never stops me from wanting to hop back in it. 

[Fiorentoni 4,229]

31 minutes ago, Noel said:

I wonder if anyone has more insight into this:  another almost trouble-free flight KDEN>KJAC.  Perfect route following to landing.  I did enabled VNAV button but am not sure how to use it yet from the comments made so I need to read up on that piece.  I was just following ATC's calls during descent.  I had planned on a cruise alt of FL360 but she began choking and the climb rate dwindled to a paltry 200ft/m, and then speed could not be maintained.  This started around FL280 at which point I turned off both wing and cowl anti-ice and indeed this helped (wing piece presumably), but only got me to ~FL330 at which point speed started tanking again (didn't see another ice warning appear) and by the time I realized this wasn't going to get better and dialed in FL300 to commence descending, airspeed dropped again into the stall range.  After recovering and flying level at FL300 speed made it up to 290 and had more.  There was a 40mph headwind when this was happening.  Something about climbing is odd, and perhaps this is a defect, or...I wonder if the problem is my climb speed is too low.  I watched a video done 3 months ago which got me started and he was saying 160 was fine, but that is close to stall speed I realize now.  If you think this might be the issue (too low a climb speed as the thing needs a running jump to get up the hill perhaps) or maybe any another settings I might not be having set right in the plane during climb?

160 climb speed in the flight levels?! God no, this is basically stall speed. Once you slow down to less than around 220 in the later climb, your aerodynamic performance will drop off so much that you cannot recover even with maximum thrust, unless you put the nose down and take a dive. Why do you want to climb at 160 in the first place? Best climb rate will be around 280 kts, similar to the A320 and 737.

EDIT: Whatever video you watched, he was probably talking about V2+10 after takeoff when he said "160 was fine"

Edited March 28, 2022 by Fiorentoni

[Noel 4,503]

6 minutes ago, jjeffreys said:

Make sure that you are shifting IAS to MACH at around 0.74 as was stated earlier, then bump it up to around 0.77 as you get higher, then when you reach cruise set throttles to maintain around 0.80. You will continue to see your IAS depreciate but your ground speed will remain. As you climb the difference in air pressure gives you a lower IAS, that is why MACH is used. If you leave it at 290 IAS then the plane will continue to give you less VS to try to keep your speed up and you will eventually get to a point that it will no longer climb. At FL360, 290 IAS may be an overspeed, I can't remember but it will be close. 

I love the CRJ, I fly it almost every night, yes it sometimes has issues but it never stops me from wanting to hop back in it. 

Great thank you again I missed that fine and critical point!

[Noel 4,503]

2 minutes ago, Fiorentoni said:

EDIT: Whatever video you watched, he was probably talking about V2+10 after takeoff when he said "160 was fine"

He might have meant that, but he did say climb speed of 160 was fine I'm pretty certain.  Yes, as I said I realized that when it stalled not too much under 160--but did manage to make it up to FL280 with that!

Edited March 28, 2022 by Noel

[DAD 2,653]

6 hours ago, Noel said:

I have to think part of the naysaying may have more to do w/ lack of patience and expectations of a less demanding environment than insurmmountable troubles w/ the plane even as it is. 

Glad you give the CRJ a chance. It’s a fun  and challenging aircraft to fly

edit: and guess what? There is an update in the works —>
https://forum.aerosoft.com/index.php?/topic/171604-pending-updates/

Edited March 28, 2022 by DAD

[Noel 4,503]

24 minutes ago, DAD said:

Glad you give the CRJ a chance. It’s a fun  and challenging aircraft to fly

edit: and guess what? There is an update in the works —>
https://forum.aerosoft.com/index.php?/topic/171604-pending-updates/

Yes, Jim just mentioned this--I'm sure it will have more afficiandos going forward.

[Glenn Fitzpatrick 3,798]

I actually mainly fly the 900 but same difference. For my simple requirements (load a sim brief plan and fly it, hand fly the landing) it works fine.

I am aware there are bugs which for some people are an ongoing huge issue. However for my style of flying it is fantastic.

[Gregg_Seipp 568]

2 hours ago, Noel said:

This started around FL280 at which point I turned off both wing and cowl anti-ice and indeed this helped (wing piece presumably), but only got me to ~FL330 at which point speed started tanking again (didn't see another ice warning appear) and by the time I realized this wasn't going to get better and dialed in FL300 to commence descending, airspeed dropped again into the stall range

I hear some different things but the most consistent are to climb at 250 to 10,000 ft and then accelerate to 290.  Use IAS mode, NOT VS!  The airplane *should* switch over to mach somewhere around FL270...ish? Also, I watched a video where the pilot explained that if you do get slow, level off or decend to get your speed back up before going higher.  He referred to something about the CRJ having a "critical wing" design.

Here it is....

 

[Noel 4,503]

7 minutes ago, Gregg_Seipp said:

I hear some different things but the most consistent are to climb at 250 to 10,000 ft and then accelerate to 290.  Use IAS mode, NOT VS!  The airplane *should* switch over to mach somewhere around FL270...ish? Also, I watched a video where the pilot explained that if you do get slow, level off or decend to get your speed back up before going higher.

Yes Gregg I have been using IAS mode for ascent and descent only switching to VS on my first flights where I lost the navigation, etc.

So obviously the issue was the ultra slow climb speed as I guessed must have been the main trouble.  Thanks!

Here's where I got this from, at 23:25, and I just was not paying attention past his comment, '160 is fine for initial climb rate' (and I obviously ignored the 'initial' part:

 

[Glenn Fitzpatrick 3,798]

Good article on the development of the CRJ wing :

 

http://icas.org/ICAS_ARCHIVE/ICAS2002/PAPERS/3101.PDF

 

 

[avhpilot 156]

used to work OK but i cannot use this addon anymore as it crashes the sim when starting a flight,

After spending too much time searching for an answer i found out that the problem derives from me having a 1st gen i7 CPU

Something to do with the marketplace i believe,

So i have to buy a new computer because neither aerosoft nor microsoft seem to fix this