RickB1293

Same problem, I rolled back and I'm back up.

Thanks Jim, but this has been happening during the cruise portion of flight, at FL300 and above. I checked the FCOM and the conditions you mentioned are covered. Again the TCAS switches to OFF without any input. It happens infrequently so I'm not too concerned, just curious.

If any of you guys that bought the 980ti want to get rid of your old card , I'd really like to upgrade from my 8400! :rolleyes: My next door neighbor just scored an Audi S8 (610hp all wheel drive) as a company car no less. By the time I upgrade my i7-2600K, add in the fastest 8 Gb of RAM, go for a new 1200w PSU, plug in three GTX 980ti's in 3X SLI and set up liquid cooling for all of the above I'm pretty sure I'll have less in the bank than he has. When will I stop the quest for a 10GHz OC and 300fps? NEVER!!

Howard- thanks for sharing your experience with the hardware drivers in Win8.1. The oft reported driver issues made me a little gun shy vis a vis upgrading from Win7 Professional to Win8.1. Besides, I really hated the GUI. It sounds like Win10 will maybe put my apprehensons to rest. I usually wait out any significant software upgrade until SP1 release but I missed the boat on FSX SE and will probably take MS up on their kind offer - as long as my T7 and NGX are okay.

I usually set TCAS to TA at engine start and advance it to TA/RA at the runway threshhold. I observed TCAS settings changing from TA Only to TA/RA without any keyboard or mouse input. It doesn't happen all the time but enough to make me curious. Now curious is one of my favorite conditions in the sim because I like to dig into the docs and try to understand what's happening. The TCAS operation I've experienced (see above post) while both on the ground and in flight can't be explained from reading the FCOM nor the QRH. Again, this falls under the heading of curious but certainly doesn't detract from my overall enjoyment of the T7. Honestly, the aircraft has been a complete joy to learn and operate - PMDG's best offering so far.

Oops Kyle - I don't know how this ended up in a PMDG thread. I guess we just get to blame you guys for everything! :wub:

Clarke and Kyle- I'm flying stand alone and I'll check for an inadvertent keystroke command. Thanks for the suggestions and quick response, I'll let you know what I find. BTW, this started after installing the latest upgrade.

I don't mind the offer, in fact I appreciate their generosity. What truly galls me is the fact that I can't easily remove it from my task bar. I've read the offer, I'll consider it but please stop the software equivalent of SHOUTING about it.I get software subscription renewal offers all the time but this is the first time that I've had one shoved in my face. For ##### sake just give me the damn EXIT option and I'll be as happy as a clam.

I have had TCAS reset to STBY a couple of times during long (+4 hrs) flights. The TCAS is switched to STBY and the ND displays an amber "TCAS OFF" notification. I can turn it back on by rotating the switch to TA/RA but I haven't been able to catch it prior to or just after the reset. I can't find a reference in FCOM1 or 2 or the QRH covering an uncommanded reset to STBY. Has anyone encountered this and is their anything I need to do to prevent this.

I apologize for the unfortunate choice of words. What I meant to say and should have said is that the T7 pushes the envelope on what a 32 bit program can deliver. That's a good thing because reality is expensive but when delivered as by the T7, resources (and money) are well spent. I absolutely agree that the VAS issues are a product of the aircraft and the environment (ie, FSX). I'm sure that the original developers would be blown away by how much we can actually squeeze out of the sim. The problem is that some developers get a little lazy optimizing resource usage and spend little time analyzing the effect of their offerings on other products and on FSX itself. It's understandable to a certain degree because the evaluation truth table would truly be a sight to behold. Fortunately PMDG and other main stream developers do take the time and a hell of a lot of effort to tighten up their products. The problem is there is no one supporting FSX at the system level, nor is there anyone evaluating after market addons for their effect on the sim nor on other developer's products. As you stated, the result is that FSX is being asked to do way more than it was ever designed to do. Also, maybe there are just too many tweaks available and no real way to completely evaluate there effect on the sim. There is also a mindset in the community to push FSX way too hard. Rather than settle for relevant range performance that is "good enough", we opt for performance that pushes way too close to the envelope. How many times have you seen someone pushing for 60-80 fps frame rates when the human eye can only process twenty four? The truth is the sim will never provide visuals comparable to Aerial America. Again, I'm sorry if I left the impression that PMDG was somehow irresponsible when the opposite is really the case. In fact, the 737 NGX and the T7 are the only aircraft I fly.

Eduardo- Have you tried deleting the FSX.cfg file in the user name/app data/roaming/Microsoft/FSX folder? Even though you reinstalled the program, this step may be useful and certainly easy to do. Remember to save your old copy like fsx.cfg.save. The cfg file is dynamic and sometimes it can be corrupted which accounts for most if not all of my FSX hangs. Let us know what you find. The PMDG products are the mother of all resource hogs, that's probably why the problems show up when you run them (sorry PMDG). Also take a look at the MS WIndows updates, sometimes they don't play well with others. Did you run CHKDSK when you reformatted? Reformatting, especially the quick one doesn't remove all hard drive data and there may be some legacy code that PMDG's low level calls wake up. To reiterate other good advice, go to the CTD forum and download the guide. It has a wealth of information borne of many, many sleepless nights. (Any one else have one of those "I'll just try this one last fix and then I'll call it quits" ordeals?)

Thanks for the update. Be nice if someone relayed the technical specs.

Let me get this straight. The SE edition REWROTE FSX code to make it somewhat more compact and thus uses less VAS? I don't know about others experience but in my world it isn't FSX that sucks up the resources, it's the addons, so unless they've also been rewritten I don't expect to see much improvement. The biggest resource hogs are the weather injectors like ASN, the weather illustrators that draw beautiful skies and clouds at 4096X4096, the Google Earth type photorealistic scenery artists that place huge chuncks of mother earth in memory so FSX can grab it and display it without running back to the HD every time my Super Hornet passes a city block at Mach 2 and finally the hyper realistic airliners that have to process a lot of info in real time to earn the praise of simmers that won't otherwise ever come near the real airplane. All this still has to happen in the 4GB environment impossed by FSX's 32 bit environment, new C++ runtimes not withstanding. It's more likely that any improvement that comes with Steam is what we in the trade call an illusory correlation. Oh, and recompiling won't overcome VAS limitations without serious procedure rewrites which from my understanding wasn't part of the deal between Steam and MS. Steam is a market channel and anti-piracy platform. Either way FSX is loaded on your system, once it's up it won't matter how it got there.

Do you engage the AP prior to takeoff?

Try this analogy. You're in a boat and want to cross a mile wide river to reach the marina. The river has a current of 5 knots, the cross wind. Take a compass reading from your beginning point toward the marina, this is your True Course. Now begin your trip to the marina. If you follow the compass heading you initially took and the boat is moving at 5 knots on the speedometer you are making 5 knots ground speed. At the same time the river current is pushing you down stream also at 5 kts. The point you will reach while maintaining the initial heading will be one mile down stream of the marina, because you are going 5 kts down stream and 5 kts along your compass heading. Trigonometry will tell you how far you actually travel thanks to good old Pythagorus (sp?). The path the boat actually makes to reach the down stream point is your track, also called course over ground or COG. If you want to go directly to the marina, you'll have to add a correction factor to your magnetic heading to compensate for the current. The correction factor can be found by doing the math, using a computer (paper or electronic) or letting the autopilot do it for you. In this simplification you would take compass reading of a point one mile upstream. The initial heading to your destination plus the correction factor for the drift. This will result in COG=Initial Heading=True Course. Of course actual aeronautical navigation is more complex because of the greater distances travelled and the fact that the world is round, but the theory is the same. All of this is better explained in any book on navigation or even Wiki it's called vector arithmetic.

Did this just start after you installed FS2Crew? Maybe there is a problem with their flows or modification of the T7.

A tail strike pops an EICAS message and pulls up a solution matrix through the checklist. The Flaps 5 CDU entry and an actual flaps set of 15 didn't alarm. I just tried it.

Jim, Sorry that one got away! My first post was wishful thinking.

It sounds like a stabilizer trim warning but that shows an EICAS message. It's got to be configuration related but I don't know what changes at TA. Is TA at FL18? When do you engage autopilot and does it have any effect? Did you set the altimeter to QNH? What are your speeds during the climb? Can you furnish any screenshots of the displays, PFD, ND and EICAS? If we can setup the airplane with the same settings we might be able to trap it. Did you double check FS2Crew's flows? Does anyone know what sets or resets at weight off wheels? Sorry for all the questions but it's the only way to get the picture.

Steam is another marketing channel for FSX. I don't know what kind of fixes or features like Acceleration are in the works. To make it viable they have to include the high end addons like REX, PFPX , ASN and maybe PMDG or Carenado aircraft. Maybe in my wildest dreams they will jump start the franchise and update the code to 64 bit. It's better than leaving it in Microsoft's closet gathering dust. The other thing that Steam does is update the ownership and certification process. They do it on their other products like Call Of Duty. Once you own it and register it with Steam you don't have to jump through a bunch of hoops if you change a piece of hardware.

Thanks Kyle

They have to automate, the various rules for crossing, opposing or leading scenarios alone beg for mistakes. Do you know what the current status of NEXTGEN is? I am an admitted tech nut and this system is fascinating just from a technology standpoint. I'm wondering what the fallback is if there is a system problem. Something this mission critical is going to be triple/triple redundant, what we call five nines failure proof meaning 99.999% reliable. Last question, I do appreciate your time and input. How will NEXTGEN interface at the tower level, like runway and approach assignments? Will the tower grunts still control the beginning and end of flight and the system mediate route control at the Center level? Thanks for your input.

I thought that the whole idea behind NEXTGEN and probably SESAR in the EU is to automate these kinds of tasks and relieve ATC of workload. Is this an early implementation of these systems? At what point will ATC at Heathrow implement this? It sounds like a test run although they have run it through thousands on simulations and it is suppose to maintain airspace safety and alleviate crowding. This almost sounds too good to be true. NEXTGEN is supposed to be like AIS in the maritime environment. AIS and the rule changes that accompanied its implementation provides transponder services that indicate course, speed and distance to discreet identifiers giving everyone so equipped basic SA in crowed waterways. It has been required on commercial vessels for awhile now and is now available to all vessels. It also provides incursion warnings but is more like TCAS than any ATC routing tools.

'Time based separation' at Heathrow a world first NATS Newsbrief - February 2014 I ran across this news release regarding longitudinal separation during high headwinds. It adds another complication to this issue and another set of standards that pilots must be aware of. http://www.nats.aero/newsbrief/time-based-separation-heathrow-world-first/ It seems to be an elegant solution to airport crowding based on the physics alone. Think of it, distance separation based aircraft type and wake vortex that doesn't take headwinds into account results in slower arrival rates because the aircraft's speed over ground is inversely related to headwind velocity. As the headwinds increase in velocity the aircraft maintaining a constant IAS will see a decrease in SOG and a resultant increase in arrival times. According to the NATS, landing rate, passenger arrivals or whatever quantitative metric is used decreases causing delays and even cancelled flights. The new system being deployed at Heathrow beginning in spring of 2015 will use data collected and studied over three years taken from over 100,000 flights. The resultant metric is expected to save over 80,000 minutes of delays every year. NATS is a partner in SESAR, the European Commission's equivalent to NEXTGEN.

We need Driver's Ed for airplanes. Commercial pilots don't enough credit, the volume of informantion on so many subjects. It's not just aviate, navigate, communicate for them. I don't see how they keep up with all the changes. I appreciate the time that real aviation people share on the forums. Look at products like PMDG, ASN, PFPX and the EFB stuff you realize that flight simming is a pretty small and amazingly technical niche market. I don't know if it's the allure of mastering something that is so technically challenging or the love of flying that draws me. I have always been the guy that takes something apart just to see how it works I guess, drives the wife nuts cause I can't seem to leave sleeping dogs lay.