Debonair - Excessive Climb rate questions.

[Guest]

>Engineer.....I is one of 'dem. ;-) me-can-knuckle, that is. We should start the Avsim Engineering Forum, Civil/Traffic here>To bad he want to go to Notre Dame.....:-lol You've got that right, lol>

http://www.michigansports.com/grafix/logo_umich.gif >Go Blue!

Well, um, I have some allegence to the Wolverines since I grew up near Detroit, but I'd have to say....Go Yellowjackets (Georgia Tech)MikeKOCF

[Geofa 108]

Well thanks to all the help you put in and Fly Ontario-and yes I am still shocked at the reaction!http://members.telocity.com/~geof43/geofanim2.gif

[Guest artl]

>If you experience a >constant beep and the wing leveler will not disengage, >recycle the master switch located on the left lower side of >the panel. That will disengage and end the beep. An easier way to disengage the leveller (after the AP switch is turned off) seems to be to just hit the "Z" (FS's own AP hot-key)By the way Geoff... the "hint" under the mouse when it is over the "RWY INFO" button, is "Attitude indicator". Thought youmight finally appreciate something real simple to fix :-)Art.

[Geofa 108]

Actually-the tooltips are practically impossible to fix. That part is hard coded into the gauge itself. That is why three or four of the gauges will show something else when you run your mouse over them-something that I think is going to have to be lived with. :-grrhttp://members.telocity.com/~geof43/geofanim2.gif

[Guest Pieter]

>constant beep and the wing leveler will not disengageThe first time I encountered this "bug" with Geof's (now my ;-)) Deb, I was stunned. Playing for real I decided to act along and worked out what one might do when this would really happen in the air with the AP in a locked-up situation... FS spoiled us over the years by always allowing us to switch the AP off. ;-)I just let it fly merrily along for a while. I then switched back to heading control of the aircraft with the autopilot in charge. I flew a wide circle as I aimed for the NDB at the runway approach using the heading bug control. This allowed me to approach the NDB calmly in a wide arc and I could line-up for the runway. The AP allowed me control of the descend manually and I came in straight, landing safely with a nice flare, however, the AP still in control of the banking. I kept the nose wheel up as long as possible to prevent it from veering until the speed was low enough for a short full stop with wheel brakes. Remember AP off is part of the finals check list! Nice! If left on during landing and with heading control or whatever, the aircraft may really let you run off wildly or even tip over after touch down! I believe if this can be done simulated, your bird will not let you down, Geof, if ever the AP quit in this manner in the circuit! Pity still that FS ATC could not play along with this emergency...Pieter

[Geofa 108]

Lol-first time it happened to me I also treated it as an emergency-but I shut all the power off as I probably would do. When I restored the power it worked-hence my fix to the bug for now -flip the masters on and off.I got an email from another pilot who also treated it as a "situation"-I guess people who fly for real are used to having these things happen in real flight and just go into react mode.It would be nice if fs could have more of these type of mystifying and strange events.Of course-it is my hope to fix this one!Geofhttp://members.telocity.com/~geof43/geofanim2.gif

[Guest artl]

I have updated a couple of the threads dealing with the AP disengage.Pressing "Z" (FS's normal autopilot toggle) after switching off the deb AP, will kill the wing-leveller and trim-hold.That may give you a hint as to what is wrong... FS still thinks the AP is on, so some piece of global FS information is not being updated by the gauge's code.I have been playing with the AP quite a bit...Feel free to contradict me, because I do not know the instrument, and am not a pilot, but my perception of its real-world operation is:1. Engaging "standby", "nav-hold", or "heading-hold", alsoengages wing leveller, and engages VS as per the time of set.2. Engaging heading hold, would fix the heading to the a/cheading AS OF TIME OF ENGAGE...3. The left-right knob only applies to heading-hold, and changesthe current heading in the clicked direction. I assume that the 3 clicks right and left of centre are probably 10,20,and 30-degree bank turns???Now, the deb's a/p operation in FS:1. Engaging heading does not hold the current heading, but turns a/c to the HSI's heading bug. I do not know what FS global information a Gauge programmerhas at his disposal,but I would have assumed that the current heading and the heading-bugposition would be available to him. Thus, wouldn't it be possibleto have the gauge code move the heading bug to the current a/cheading and THEN engage, in order to simulate the real ap? 2. The left-right heading knob works only if the wing leveller is disabled by setting:use_no_default_bank=1in the Autopilot section of aircraft.cfg.This is probably an FS limitation for your ap "guage", but evenwhen the knob IS working, it seems to lose track of its position.After playing with it for a while, "neutral" will shift to one or two clicks to the right, and you can only make left turns with it.Also, when the knob is in certainclick-postions, the horn sounds.Again, I am not sure of what the guage-writer has available, but would it not be possible to simply have the left-right knob movethe HSI's bug-setting knob, which would, in turn, adjust the heading?? I have also looked at the aileron trim, and there seems to besomething inherently wrong with its interaction with the mainaircraft model... Perhaps there is some setting required in aircraft.cfg. I substituted the Lear and the Kingair aileron trim,and none of the three have any effect on the deb's roll.PS... The aircraft is very, very flyable as it, and I provide myexperiences above in case it triggers some hints for when (or if)you and your team decide to persue some these "issues"...Thanks again. Art.

[Geofa 108]

Some of what you say of the autopilot is correct-some is not. I would suggest-here is the real manual if pdf form:http://www.s-tec.com/pdf/40-50.PDFIt would be easiest to take a look at this-for instance 2) is incorrect-the heading mode causes the autopilot to follow the heading bug on the hsi-not your current aircraft headingThe wing leveller is also on as soon as you turn the autopilot on.In any case-reading the manual is the best course here-it is an stec 50 (they have the 40 bundled also).However-here is how I use it 99.9% if the time. You run the self test on the ground. Then on takeoff-say atc starts talking to you and you have to copy some clearances etc. -hit 'on". At this point the wing leveler is on and the plane will keep its present setup e.g a climb etc. Say at this point atc says" turn to 180 degress" at this point push the "heading" button and turn the heading bug on the hsi to 180-the autopilot will now turn to 180 in a standard rate turn and continue your setup. When you reach your altitude-level out-trim, and hit "altitude". The plane will now fly at that alitude, and the heading the heading bug is set to. If atc requests more changes you now turn the heading bug (heading mode still engaged) to the new heading-the autopilot will fly it. The turn knob in the center will do a coordinated turn left or right (if heading mode isn't selected) but I have to confess I have never used it-there really isn't any reason. Even when doing holds with the autopilot-I basically level off-hit alt, then use the heading bug to set the headings.We are in the process of redoing lots of things-so the aeleron trim may be improved /fixed. I used the default one included with fs but didn't really bother to check it-again it isn't a hugely used item anyway-but if not working I would like to fix it.http://members.telocity.com/~geof43/geofanim2.gif

[Guest artl]

Thanks... That clarifies the operation greatly.That means that the only "real" issues are the disengage(easily worked-around with the "Z" key) and the co-ordinated turn knob, which you don't use much anyway.By the way... have you seen this post/thread re the nav-gps gauge?http://ftp.avsim.com/dcforum/DCForumID8/4606.html#6I haven't seen anything like that...I do have a tiny issue at startup when the deb is the a/cin the default flight, but I am still looking at it beforeI post about it. And anyway, it starts up and runs okayin spite. Art.