First flight in CRJ-700. Total catastrophe.

[Guest Agrajag]

I took a bit of time to get familiar with the CRJ's setup as I'm used to flying only my PSS Dash 8 for the last couple of years (it's a mess in FSX) and thought I had it down.So much for planning.On the ground on the way out I find there's no physical switch for the Avionics Master. How'd they miss this one? Thus I could power up but couldn't get the displays up. Not much good there. Time for CTRL-E until I find a work-around.The take-off out of LAS was a thing of beauty. It took off, made a flawless right and followed Boach out so well I wanted to watch it again.I got into the air okay and ran into the "Speed" issue. Not matter what setting I set the Speed indicator to, the CRJ just continued to lose power. I'd see the purple indicator but nothing would keep it there. I'm assuming this is because I skipped the section on autothrottle. Would that about cover it? heheheNavigation with the GPS was working solidly the entire flight. I really dislike the GPS as an FMS because it's a nightmare to make on-the-fly changes in. If anyone can recommend a place to get a seamless replacement, let me know. That they taunt you with the real one in the virtual cockpit just isn't nice.Then I started my approach in LAX. Runway 25L. Civet5 approach procedure. I'm hitting all the marks with a lot of manual work keeping the speed right and the altitude crossing restrictions in check. I then make the big right turn to go parallel with the runway. From my vantage point everything looks fine. The GPS flightplan button shows me hitting all the marks. I hit the APPR button. The plane takes that to mean "fall out of the sky". Meanwhile the ILS indicators show me, while diving, to be perfectly vertical and horizontal for the slope. It never moved from dead center either way. What'd I miss???I get to Fueler and it's clear I'm WAY right of the runway. In fact, I'm lined up on one of the 24's. I check the ILS freq. It's right on at 109.90. I have to scatter to try to get down as I'm tired and the controller is tired. No time for a missed approach.I know it's going to end badly. I bounce off the runway at 220k and then again and again. I end up nicely in the water off the back end. How did I end up so far right on 25L when every other part of the approach was right on?Any help here would be appreciated. I feel like I flew as if I'd never seen the game before. Pretty bad.

[ahinterl 1]

My advise is to not use FS default planes. They terribly lack in-depth system modelling, documentation and good FDEs, let aside avionics...Before you break your head because all of the quirks of FS default planes (they're not worth it) get something already available for FSX like LDS767 or 737PIC or the Maddog 2006.Digital Avionics' CRJ will hopefully come out this year...Andreas

[Guest Agrajag]

Thanks. I really don't want to get into jumbos. They don't do it for me. Plus most of them require a level of involvement I'm just not into. I own the ATR72-500 and I never fly it. One reason is that it's a resource hog but the main reason is that it's just too darned complicated.That's what I loved about the PSS Dash-8. Decent flight characteristics and some decent interaction giving the impression of some realism without requiring a 400 page manual.As there's little other options right now I'm kinda stuck. I'd gladly buy another plane but they're just not there right now.

[jlohrenz 133]

I think the 'APPR' issue is what I had once where I didn't take the plane out of GPS mode and into NAV mode. You need to have the CRS and HDG settings set correctly and the NAV1 tuned properly to recieve the ILS signal. APPR goes off of those when you re in the glide slope. If you don't turn off GPS it doesn't know what to do. It took me a few missed landings to find out that I had missed that step.On a side note I'm currently working with the configs for the Wilco CRJ offering. The weights are all goofy in FSX (the aircraft was made for 2002 and then ported to FS9).It has a great model and a working FMC, so all I need to do is get the weight and balance figured out and it would be a nice option for the CRJ series (200, 700 and 900) in FSX.Good Luck!

[Guest RonB49]

I agree with neorecon. You probably had not changed the NAV/GPS switch to the NAV position. But going back to the first part of your post, I've noticed several planes (both default and add-ons) which do not have an Avionics Master switch and some without a Battery switch. So what I did was go into the Options > Settings menu and assign keys to those functions, then you can turn them on and off at will.Now, after you read up on that pesky autothrottle, you should be in good shape. Oh, by the way, I don't think that aircraft was designed to land at 220 knots and definatly you should keep it out of the water. :)R-

[Guest Agrajag]

I believe you are both right. It sounds like, with all the work going on at the last minute, that I likely didn't make that change. I've now put it into a checklist.As far as keys for missing switches, yes, that will work but it's a shame. It takes away from the immersion factor a bit. On the plus side I have a Logitech G15 keyboard that has 18 macro keys that will be perfect for toggling these things.It seems there's also no button for arming or selecting a setting for the spoilers.As far as the landing speed, it was due in large part to the frantic shuffle to get back into line with the right runway. That shouldn't happen again for that reason. I do find that in VATSIM controllers often will get to you just a bit late causing lots of times where you are compelled to dive-bomb the runway or just declare a missed approach.BTW, I bought the Wilco CRJ years ago and shelved it for stability reasons back during the FS9 days. I noticed they now have the ERJ ported to FSX and wondered about using it but then figured it'd be more of the same trouble. As far as the CRJ from that German fellow, I don't think I'll even consider that one. It's been in the works literally for SEVERAL years now and the shots he's showing suggest it's still a long ways off.For now the default CRJ seems like an okay interim solution until something a step or two up shows up. To get it to work as cleanly as the Dash did I still need to find one or maybe two items:1. I need a tool to build complex routes more easily. FSBuild isn't the answer to me as every time I've tried the trial I found it to be a UI nightmare. If FSNavigator ever shows up for FSX I'll be okay there. How MS left the Flight Planner the way it is is a mystery It should fill much more of the screen and allow for searching of nav points. I like the idea of having to read the departure and approach procedures and building my own pieces of them.2. I need a much better FMS. Does someone make a universal seamless in-game FMS? The DASH FMS was wonderful to me. So easy to add nav points and to quickly amend an entire setup once you get assigned a runway, for example. With the current GPS, if I set up for one runway and draw another, it's all going to be manual from there. Just no way to make that many changes with that thing.

[Guest zinja]

I've been flying this plane for a couple of weeks now for WestWind. The speed issue is because you have click Speed on the autopilot panel. I haven't tried the approach on the autopilot, though, because I still like to hand fly it.The CRJ-700 feels very much like a Fisher Price sim to me. I like it, but it's very simplified. Also, look out for fuel economy. I always seem blow at least 50% more fuel than the amount listed in the flight plan.

[jlohrenz 133]

Project Open Sky has a nice CRJ-200 as well. There are free pannel and sound packages here at avsim to assist.I'm mainly working on the Wilco CRJ because I like the fact that it is modeled better than the other options out there. I'm hoping if I can get the weight, balance, and other features adjusted correctly it will be a more stable aircraft...if not then I will divert back to the posky.

[Guest airblitz]

I know it's a little late but a CRJ700 could be found at http://www.united-virtual.com/fleet/UVA-FSX-CR7.msi the downside is it only has United express liviries. I've tested it and it seems much better than everything else.A good freeware flight management computer i would recommend vasFMC, but you need a up to date version of FSUIPC to run it.If you do decide to use the vasFMC then read through the manual carefully, the software is a little bit confusing.Cheers!