Dick

Bought it yesterday, install straight forward. Great plane, great FPS Could do with better instructionflight/manuals but I am sure that will come. Next to my Coolsky classic this is my aircraft of choice ! happy flying, Dick

Only when flying empty the MD-11 has an aft centre of gravity ( tailheavy ). Due to the fact that there is lot more fuselage before the wing compared to aft of the wing the MD-11 tends to get noseheavy when loaded. Cargo aircraft suffer the most from this. As there is more fuselage before the wing there is also more cargo in front of the wing. You already concluded that the MD-11 has difficulty flying empty. The (cargo)aircraft also has difficulty when flying full. What you would do is make sure you have heavy and light pllts and place the heavy ones near the tail ( making sure you do not tip the aircraft in the loadingprocess) or load ballast(fuel) B rdgs Dick

When your system fails after a couple of succesfull starts ( as I understand) what is the aircraft type that you start with ? Outside your FSX installation there are the saved and default flight files. I do not know what OS you use but it would be somewhere in users/your name/documents etc. Could it be that there is a flight that you saved and that is not replaced by the default installation that is corrupt ?

The Air Creation 582SL is the trike that starts with the default flight. There is also a red version. Maybe something went wrong with these aircraft files. Can you try to start with another aircraft ? or go into your saved flights folder and start another flight from there by clicking on the file ?

I have been happily flying the DC-9 without issues from day 1, many others as well. There are users that report graphical issues but the can't load error is not that common. Have you tried the Flight1 safe startup file ? these errors often occurs when the startup situation is not right. It's free and you can get it here: http://www.flight1software.com/files/FSXSafeStartup.exe Also go here and read all the reviews : http://www.coolsky.no/ b rdgs Dick

This plane does not have a lot of bugs ! And is a joy to fly. 2 patches have ironed out the plane pretty much. If you find this plane buggy you either have not understood how to fly without computers or you need to through the manual again to see how to operate a non computerized aircraft. B rgds DIck

Robin, Away from my fs computer for the coming weeks so nothing I can varify in the simulation As to fuel. Originally the md-11 came to us with only one way of fuelling. It was called basic ground fuel schedule and meant that fuel tanks were filled in sequence, first 1/2 and 3 ( being the wing tanks), after that the aux tank would be filled and if still fuel needed to be uplifted the tail tank was the last to be filled. If no fuel went into the tail the ac ended up nosehavy. Later MdD offered (against payment) an option for another way to fuel the aircraft, the basic ground fuel schedule ratio 7,5 to 1. After having filled the wings the remainder of the fueluplift would be split and for each 7,5 tons of fuel in the aux, 1 ton would go into the tail tank. The ratio comes from the fact that the aux contains 7.5 times the fuel that the tailtank can hold. In terms of cog the forward cog movement because of the fuel in the aux tank would be cancelled out by the aft cog movement because of the fuel in the tail. That is why you will see a different tocog for the same payload/fueloplift. Both do carry the word ground fuel schedule in their name because in flight everthing changes again. Once climb power is selected just after t/o, the aircraft will transfer as much fuel as possible/available to the tail until the optimum cog is obtained. Depending on the actual fuelload/useage the system will keep trying to achieve the optimim cog by playing the fuel in the tail. Before landing fuelquantities in each tank will be put back according to the applicable fuelschedule. Before able to fly, all aircraft need to have their center of lift and center of gravity close to each other, if the load is such that this cannot be achieved the aircraft will need to be trimmed with the horizontal stablizer. Every degree that the horizontal stabilizer is out of the neutral position will cost extra fuel and the md-11 uses a lot of extra fuel when trimming is required. Once ballast fuel was used in the tail, the 7,5 to 1 cannot be used anymore as useable and non useable fuel cannot mixed. Also the fuel management system that improves the cog in flight cannot be used. In real life when planning to have ballastfuel in the tail we were slapped straightaway with a 3 0/0 extra fuel penalty due to the expected extra required trimming. As to your other comments, indeed pax aircraft are in normal operation always in trim. When the md-11 is tailheavy this is indeed normally easy to fix and should only occur in empty freighter ferry flights. This would effectively mean that a Freighter Cannot fly empty unless something is done with ballast. We were not even allowed to park an md-11 empty during a layover. When the freighter has all positions filled and the pallets all have more or less the same weigt it is quite possible that the aircraft will be too noseheavy to fly. Now, when you add ballastfuel in the tail you will loose your higher t/o weights and you will be surprised with the 3 percent fuel penalty and you will need to go back to the drawingboard..... Brgds Dick

Robin, Yes, at least in real life the H mode should be deselected when you carry ballastfuel. That will give you indeed a lower certified tow. If you are interested I can explain the difference between the H mode and the non H mode. Not sure what you mean with your last sentence, when an md-11 is out of trim it normally is noseheavy and you would require ballast fuel in the tail. Tailheavy out of trim aircraft would in real life only happen in empty freighters. Out of trim would mostly happen on cargo aircraft when all or most positions are filled and when all pallets have more or less the same weight. E.g when you have a full load of e.g flowers or any other single commodity load. If you have mixed cargo you would position the heavy pallets in the back and the lighter ones up front to compensate for the fact that you have many more positions in front of the center of lift then pallets aft of the center of lift . You could see it as a seasaw where you have a whole lot more children at one side compared to the other side. In real life fuel generally would not bring you out of trim. In the H mode fuel is nicely divided between center and tailtank balancing out the cog effect of the fuel. In the non H mode the tail fills last meaning that you need to have a blockfuel over 111 tons, that being the case you will have a restricted zfw meaning that your aircaft has empty positions which woud allow you to trim the aircraft with your payload. Brgds Dick

Sound is a very personal issue. As the engines are at back of the DC-9 the aircraft has a "quiet" cockpit. Epikk : is that what you mean with "weak" ? I find the sound package ok. Although there were issues with the aircraft for some users., there are also users ( like myself) that are happily flying around without real issues really enjoying this old lady. b rdsg Dick

Need to correct myself on the upper aux tank issue, I think I was wrong in stating that ballast and useable could not be mixed in the upper auxtank. For the tailtank this is true but not for the Aux. There is lot modelled. It was good to see that the H fuel mode indeed comes with the higher Tow weight and a different tocg compared to the nonH fuel mode which is correct as the fuel is loaded in a different sequence. What I noticed is that the H mode is applied from the LM but once you are in the aircraft you can select ballastfuel while in real life, when carrying ballast fuel, the H mode cannot be used. Coming back to the original question from Robin as to how to calculate the correct amount of ballast in case of an out of trim aircraft...: although having done this for years in real life, in the simulation I have not been able to work this out. b rdgs Dick

Hi Robin, need to see if later tonight I have time to look into the simulation a little more. as to your message : "Aux tank can be either usable only, or ballast and usable" is technically spoken not incorrect. The Aux fuel tank consists of two parts, the upper and the lower. The upper aux can contain either ballast or useable and the lower aux can only contain useable fuel. There could be a scenario where the upper contains ballast while the lower aux contains useable fuel rendering the afore statement not incorrect. Although in the airlinebizz you do not want phrase things like this I guess. As to consider a tank "dry".. even 1 kg of ballast fuel in the tail or upper aux would make you "loose" this tank and your max fuel upliftcapacity shall be lowered by the capacity of the tank involved. ( which if I remember correctly was 5 tons for the tail and 18?or so tons for the upper aux . best regards Dick

Robin; My knowledge is based on real life MD-11 weight&balance knowledge and not so much on the way PMDG has modelled the concept of ballast fuel in the simulation. I appreciate the difference between useable and ballast fuel. If you play with the LM, you will find that if the ZFWCG is in limits, it is extremely difficult to find a configuration that causes fuel burn to put the CoG out of limits. Indeed this is correct. The MD-11 comes with a zfw envelope that has extra restrictions when carrying higher fuel loads resulting in a situation where once inside the zfw limits, fuel will never bring you out of any envelope. Not sure if this correctly simulated here. In real life we did have the arms and based on the ballast fuel weights and the corresponding moment could be calculated which would be "translated" in a CG. When using ballast fuel you are not allowed to use the H distribution system. I do not see this restriction being modelled. Actually the H distribution or "7.5 to 1" as we called it, was an option that was not bought by all MD-11 operators. It is mainly useful for freighters but less for the pax operations. Any tank on the aircraft can only contain either ballast or useable fuel. Iow if you would carry ballast fuel in the upperaux you would loose that tank for the useable fuel I do not see this modelled in the simulation. The same is valid for any ballast fuel in the tailtank. It is also very unlikely that you would want to carry ballast fuel in tank 2, Fuel in this tank would not change the COG ( based on the location of the tank). Ballast fuel would be carried in the Upper aux in case of being tailheavy and in the tailtank in case of being noseheavy. I am also surprised seeing the tocg being mentioned and even to see as pilot input. In our operation the ToCG was calculated by the aircraft and only a required input if the aircraft buildin weight&balance system was inop. Like you did I can only conclude that we have no real means of computing the required ballastfuel in the simulation, we are left with swopping some lowerdeck positions around or offloading freight, which in real life would also be most of times the solution. On top of that I see some other restrictions and regulations not being modelled rendering whatever means of calculating we would have inaccurate. any questions, let me know - b rdgs Dick

Ballast (fuel) is used to bring the cog of the MD-11 in zerofuelweight conditions back into cog limits. Ballast fuel is unusable during the flight and therefore is not really counted as fuel. ( therefore the distincton between useable fuel and unuseable fuel The MD-11 is critical to bring into the zfw limits. When empty or light the tailengine shifts the cog very much aft and in this case ballast fuel in the centertank needs to be loaded. By design the fuselage part before the wing is much larger then the part aft of the wing. Therefore when fully loaded there is considerable more weight before the wing compared to aft of the wing. In this case the MD-11 will have a very forward CG and ballast fuel may be requried in the tailtank to bring the cg back into the required range. You cannot really talk about cog as such, it is less confusing to talk about either the cog in zerofuelweight condition (zerofuel cog) and the cog of the aircraft in takeoff condition, iow loaded and with all the useable fuel. The reasoning that we only need ballast fuel in case the cog goes out of limits due to fuel burn is incorrect. Once the Md-11 is in limits in zfw condition, fuel (or the use of fuel) will never bring you out of limits. (mind you.. were are talking about the MD-11 here, this statement is not valid for all aircraft types as for the MD-11 the cog consequences of fuel burn have been already incoperated in the zfw cog limits) As to your initial question how to compute the ballast fuel: you will need to calculate the cog of the aircraft in zfw condition. If the computed value is out of limits you need to add ballast ( which could be anything like e.g. sandbags as used in the past, LD3 containers filled with concrete or e.g. ballast fuel. If the zfw cog is aft of the limits the ballast will need to be loaded before the wing, in the opposite case the ballast will need to be positioned aft of the wings. As not to confuse yourself guys do not see ballast fuel as fuel but see it as dead weight that is required to bring the aircraft to a required cog value. Let me know if not clear b rdgs / Dick

Was it the default airport ? or an addon ? FSX is doing nothing but following the information that the AFCAD gives. If FSX is giving conflicting information seems you have at least two afcads. Changing priorities may not help as both Afcads will still be read. Go to add-ons tab on the top of your screen and select Couatl-powered products > GSX Customize this airport. Here you can see which Afcad GSX is using. If that is not the correct one you can rename/remove it and possibly solving your double afcad issue.

"I didn't override the ETA I don't know y that happened"... There is 08.49+1 in the override box, so the arrival time is overridden. If you leave this box empty the arrival time will be calculated depending on the speed of the aircraft. You can override the ETA like you did here but doing that in combination with a departure time of 06.00 gives you a flighttime of 21hr 49mnts and that messes things up. So either leave the override box empty or give a reasonable departure time.

But Gear UP and Off is right, one frame cannot cover this. You cannot tick all the day boxes for 1 frame. Try to tick days 1-3-5 for 1 frame/sequence and 2-4-6 for a second entry and day 7 to a third sequence. Also I noticed that your LGAV departure is 06.00 and you overrode the arrival in BKK to 08.49+, making this a 21.49 hour flight. That messes things up. Why did you override the BKK arrival time.. ? or did you mean to put 18.00 as LGAV departure time ? Remember that you do not have to enter an airline schedule but the flights that one AI entry is making.

Strange that I lost top view F12 just after I installed Opus and for what I can see the same happened to Zoran. Shift-A does not give me a top down view in my setup. At the moment I am struggling with the weather themes that cannot be loaded and make the weather going back to default, after that I will have a look at the cameras. Thx your help. edit: Shift S gives me a top down view, guess I changed the settings...

Hi, Got Opus yesterday, still figuring things out. I seem to have lost my F12 top down view which I used to orientate myself at airports. Did Opus take this away ? Is there a way to get it back ? thx your help b rdgs Dick

I agree with Flygeordie. I also absolutely love flying the DC-9. It is new so indeed there are some issues. Nothing serious though for me. And the developer is working hard top get these rectified. Had a patch already after a week. This plane is not for the slower systems. And yes there is no FMS.. some interesting hand flying to be done here. Just as Flygeorgie I also use the FSX flightplan for the cruise .

It is correct that you have your weather radar on while being marshalled ? if so I also would hide..The radiation is very bad for you and in real life taxi lights and radar are always switched off at this stage.Dick

Vonmar,Look at this : http://forum.avsim.net/topic/355084-what-happened-to-my-900/page__hl__what%20happenedDoes not give a solution however, at some point Ryan / PMDG jumps in stating that PMDG may have found a solution and that is the last we heard of it.b rdgs Dick

Bought the NGX yesterday and having the same problem with the 900 VC as shown in the screenshot of DrumsArt.Attn Ryan : do we still need to submit a ticket or are you going to make the fix available without ticket ?thxDick Ridersma

As far as I know in order to retract the center gear while on the ground, you will need to have the aeroplane on jacksb rdsg Dick

Have you ever tried to load the fuel via the FMS ? ( md-11) ? that should solve all your problems... if not let us know exactly what you do and how much fuel you have in which tank.. will makes it easier for us to pinpoint your problem..b rgds / Dick

Happens to me also; no FS2Crew, no saved panel state or whatever. To me it happened on the second leg of a flight. Did the first leg and TOD pause worked. Did the second leg ( just reloaded the FMC and fuel, nothing else) and no TOD pause ..hope this can be fixedrgds / Dick