LMF5000

Thanks - I was trying to convey the same message in my previous post. The legal/regulatory side is our responsibility - we're just posting here to reach a wider audience of developers who could help with the actual implementation.

Indeed. Our existing B1/T1 and B2/T2 courses are already EASA and GCAA approved with the paper-based notes. Synthetic training devices like this are covered under Part 147.A.115(a).

Thank you. So it's not just me that's noticing an unwarranted level of hostility. Indeed, MVs response was the most positive thing to come out of this thread (thus far). I won't disclose the contents of his PM, but it certainly does his company credit. I was hoping to encounter more people like that on this thread.

Thanks for the lead on Peters software. Will follow that up if our Plan A fails. Nice website in the signature by the way!

Not exactly - this is just a training aid to supplement the existing system of paper-based classroom theory. Provided it is used for training purposes only (standard disclaimer), as far as I know it doesn't need specific validation like the course notes themselves do (obviously, other than quality testing to make sure it is consistent with the manufacturer's AMM). Paying until our ears bleed is par for the course in this industry Maybe not FSX since it's abandonware, but I'm sure an FSX-compatible deriviative (P3D, Dovetail's new offering, etc.) would be willing to supply the right license for the right price. But that'll be our responsibility. We can even do away with the FS environment altogether and make a dedicated program just for the job, but it's going to use the same custom-developed 3D models regardless, so posting here is a good starting point for finding developers with experience in modelling aircraft.

Greetings. I work at an EASA part-147 maintenance training organisation that offers training on business jets. Many of our courses have a theoretical component where we train the students how the aircraft systems operate. We use training aids like scale posters of panels and EICAS displays, instructional videos, etc. in a classroom, then move on to practical training - disassembling and operating systems on a real aeroplane in the hangar, up to and including engine ground runs on the apron. We'd like to step the classroom training up a notch, by having highly realistic FSX models of the jets in our repertoire. These include: Bombardier Global 5000 & 6000 series (with the old Express AND the new Vision Avionics) Challenger 300/350 series Challenger 604/605 series Gulfstream G450/G550/G650 Since this will be used to train maintenance personnel, not pilots, here's what we need: Fully modelled 3D virtual cockpit with all switches functional Accurate operation of all aircraft subsystems (electrical, hydraulic, pneumatic, fuel, fire supression, oxygen, etc.). That means their operation, indications, failure warnings and so on are modelled Faithful reproduction of avionics systems (EICAS displays, menus, cursor controls and so on) External 3D model that includes all probes, antennas, drains, exhaust and intake ports, flight controls that behave like the real aircraft (eg different movement in case of partial hydraulic failure...) Ideally, detailed models also of internal components, like the equipment racks, avionics bay, piping under engine nacelles... Accurate engine performance simulation (indications, mostly) up to a full-power ground run. And what we don't need: Any sort of realistic flight dynamics. The aircraft will be used for ground-based training onlySo, if you're a developer (or you know a developer), particularly of payware aircraft, and you're up to the task, we'd like to discuss the possibilities. Feel free to reply here or in a private message. P.S. Before anybody mentiones it - yes, PMDG were the first developer we approached. 8 months ago, in fact. Still waiting on their response. So we've taken the search public. I'm sure there are plenty of talented developers in this community eager to take on the challenge.

Hi Kyle, It's been 8 months and still no response to the ticket. Could you look into it please? Or better yet, forward an email address or phone number by private message? Regards, Luke

OK - submitted under Billing/Sales/Accounts -> Other. Thanks and have a nice weekend.

Hi Kyle, Thanks for the reply. Account created (under same username as here but using company email address). Should I file a ticket or will you contact me automatically?

Dear PMDG, Do you have a means of contacting you privately for a business enquiry? If yes, can you kindly provide info here or via PM? I am posting here using my personal forum account since the "contact us" page on your site doesn't include any email addresses and points to here.

LMF5000, on 16 Mar 2013 - 11:38, said: Sure you have. Go to youtube and look at some Russian dashcam videos, or videos of driving in Libya. The people you see in the videos are presumably sober (alcohol is illegal in Libya), but they make errors of judgement that are sometimes hard to comprehend. Now compare some of those drivers, sober, with a 30-year old man who has 10 years of clean driving experience (i.e. what one might consider a "good driver"), but is currently driving with a blood alcohol level of 0.81% (which is just above the legal threshhold in my country - 0.80%). Who do you think is statistically more likely to cause an accident? Scrutinise those videos carefully!

It nearly happened already - my grandma's sister's husband was hit by a car while he was walking on the pavement. The driver of the car was 17 or 18. Apparently after he lost conrol of the car he hit a signpost, then a concrete shop front, and finally ran over my relative. The most significant injury was a broken pelvic bone, which left him bedridden. He died a few months later of natural causes. The driver was never punished for reckless driving. I'm not sure if alcohol was involved, or if the driver was sober but simply being very careless, or distracted in some other way. I've also had a friend who crashed into a wall and ended up in hospital when he tried driving home after a night of drinking and mistook a roundabout, and another friend who totaled his car and got stitches on his eye when he fell asleep at the wheel. Anyway, my original point was that someone wanted to destroy the livelihood of the poster who got the DUI, but my argument is that the punishment should be proportional to the crime. His only crime was exceeding the legal blood alcohol limit (he never said by how much, so maybe it was just slightly over). So I think a fine and some points on the license are reasonable. Now, if he'd been caught demonstrating poor driving (or worse), then that deserves its own penalty which should increase proportionally. He doesn't say he was booked for reckless driving too, so presumably he was driving properly at the time. If I was on that road at the time, I'd be more afraid of someone engaged in an argument with her passenger, or shouting with the kids, or checking her make-up or talking on the phone, because in each of the latter cases the driver has almost certainly diverted her attention away from the road.

Sober drivers hit people too. And not all drunk drivers end up hitting people. I'm not defending drunk driving (in fact I personally hate the taste of alcohol and never drink) - I'm just saying that your post is unreasonably harsh because drunk driving does NOT automatically guarantee an accident. It only makes it more likely - same as driving after an argument, being distracted, being sleepy, or having a bumblebee enter the car... There's also the fact that because of the wide range of skill levels on the road, some people are safer drivers drunk than some other people are when sober. Lastly, in my country we ensure road safety through different means. For instance, we use roundabouts instead of intersections. That way all traffic is going in one direction, not at right angles to one another. No need for traffic lights. And anyone going too fast and ignoring the "give way" sign will quickly find himself planted in the roundabout instead of ploughing through four lanes of traffic. There's also the fact that it's a very small country and the national speed limit is 80km/h. And the potholes slow us down even further...

I can second that. After I got my engineering degree I interned for a few months at a part-145 CAMO facility that did maintenance on Bombardiers (mainly Learjets, Challengers and the odd Global Express). Whenever you park a learjet outside the hangar and the wind is over ~10kts, the blades start windmilling and make a terrific racket. Every blade is loosely attached to the blade hub by the firtree root, so it goes "clink" once on its way up, and once on its way down - and there are 22 of them on a Garrett TFE731 (geared turbofan powering the Learjet 55. Coincidentally the GE90 also has 22 main fan blades...). I think a good description of the noise is somewhere between an extremely loud bicycle freewheel, and someone shaking a can full of bolts :lol:. What would be really impressive is if you could tie the noise to the windspeed on the field - higher windspeed gives higher N1 windmilling RPM, so it makes the clinks louder and more frequent. You could just tie the noise to N1 and have it play at low RPMs when starting up, just like in the real thing. As I usually stayed on the outside when the engines were started, I can also tell you that as RPM increases the centrifugal force pulls on the blades radially and thus the clinking noise gradually decreases and stops (because centrifugal force becomes significantly greater than the force of gravity on the blades - so it stops them from wiggling around tangentially when the pull of gravity on the blade changes direction [twice per rev]).

Hehe. Believe me, I am! But I was hoping there might be someone out there (besides PMDG) who currently make a decent B777. Or at least the airbus equivalent (would that be the A330?). Or maybe a Bombardier Global, or a Gulfstream G550... From what I can gather it's not bad, systems-wise. But the VC and model look a little flat and untextured -

I'd like your suggestions for a very high quality FSX addon of a long-range aircraft for exploring the world, one long-haul flight at a time... In a nutshell, I'd like something as good as the PMDG 737 NGX, but with a range of over 5000nm. I can think of several real-world aircraft that are up to the task, but where I need help is finding a good model of said planes on FSX. Some specifics: Proper simulation of aircraft systems (eg - if engines have air starters, I expect that they won't start if bleed air pressure is low due to no air source or leaving A/C packs on; control surfaces don't move if hydraulic pressure is low; EGT temperature rises slowly on startup, not the instant rise of the FSX default aircraft... etc.) Realistic avionics simulation (eg - if the real aircraft has an FMC, autoland and a LVL Change mode in the autopilot, the addon should have those too) Detailed VC with textures and 3D buttons and gauges if applicable As for the actual aircraft, anything will do - Any size (Widebody, narrowbody, cargo, passenger jet, business jet and everything in between) Any number of engines All I ask is that the aircraft has a range of over 5000nm and the FSX addon has the three things mentioned above. P.S. I already have the PMDG MD-11 and PMDG 747 (so no need to mention these). Thanks!

Allow me to reply by quoting paragraph 6 of page 56 of the PMDG MD-11 introduction manual: So technically, anything below 8x is within spec, as stipulated by the manufacturer (PMDG). The error appears when switching from 1x to 4x - the throttles increase when selecting 4x and go back to normal at 1x. If you switch between 1x and 4x again and again the throttles do it over and over, so either it's hard coded or this was a one-time glitch on my PC that doesn't resolve itself without restarting FSX. I'll just limit my simulation rate on descent from now on just to make sure things work as intended though. And to reply to your last comment - I actually fly most planes at 16x! It's only because the PMDG is so realistic that I've limited myself to 4x in this one ^_^. I've even done long-haul flights at 128x with the autopilot disengaged (mainly to test fuel range of my experimental creations). Nothing like keeping a plane on course at that speed to test your reflexes :blink:! Fouund a solution for that ^_^ - The free online flight planner at http://www.flightsim...ht_planner.html generates flight plans between any two airports and outputs airways and waypoints (which I then type manually into the FMC). I tested it with flights between LMML and HLLT, and the output seems to be remarkably accurate because the real-world airline where I work uses the same waypoints for this route. So... realistic route - check realistic aircraft - check 1x simulation rate - check All I need now is a monitor with airbags in case of birdstrikes :lol:.

I've just tried a flight with a cost index of 50, and it worked, but I discovered a huge bug in the MD-11. I was descending at 4x simulation rate and it demanded drag. So I gave it 2/3rds spoiler. The instant I gave it full spoiler, it started advancing the throttles! Then I left it at full spoiler and took the FSX simulation rate down to 1x, and the throttles went back to idle. I tried it again and again, and every time I gave it more than 1x simulation rate, it would advance the throttles. This is probably a bug because the simulation rate should not affect the throttle setting! The manual suggests a max simulation rate of 8x so I was within the suggested limits. I guess crazy things happen when you install a plane that attempts to overcome FSX's limitations by replacing parts of FSX with its own programming...

I'm still new at this, so I'll just believe that this is normal behavour, but if I'd been designing the flight management system, I'd have put in at least one mode that starts descent early enough to go from TOD to the airfield using idle power all the way and no spoilers - there's no better way to save fuel IMHO (except for maybe turning off the centre (#2) engine!). Hmm. I put in a cost index of 200 to cruise at M0.85. Maybe that's what put things out of whack. I think you might have found the solution! I'll try again and report on my findings.

OK, I managed to get lateral navigation to work perfectly with that method. But something is wrong with the vertical flight profile - if I just leave the altitude control in "prof" mode, it descends way too slowly (after passing the top of descent point), so I end up approaching the runway still at 10,000 feet unless I intervene manually - and it does not request extra drag. I would have the profile set up as described, with the flight plan something like this: <last SID point> 4000 feet T/C FL370 T/D FL370 <first STAR point> 2500 feet I set the autopilot altitude knob to 2500 feet during cruise and pressed the "prof" button a couple of times, but when it hit the descent point it would barely descend, oscillating between 0 and 500fpm. Am I programming something wrong? I also had a similar problem in tutorial 1 though in that case the plane DID ask for extra drag and I managed to make it to the airport using gear and spoilers to slow down.

Hi guys. LMF again. I have a small question about FMS programming the PMDG MD-11 (yeah, this thread inspired me to go out and get it...). I'm working through tutorial 1, and they naturally program the route to go from airway to airway. My question is, is there a way to program it to go directly (in a straight line) from the last fix in the SID to the first fix in the STAR without bothering to enter any airways in between? Would I be able to do this without messing up the auto climb/descent profile? P.S. I know it's not realistic, but this being a simulator I sometimes want to do a quick 'n dirty flight between two random airports and I wouldn't feel like finding airway maps and figuring out a route. In lesser planes I normally just use the GPS "direct to" button and then enter the STAR using the PROC button...

:(. Too bad. What's the best one currently available? And how bad is it? I suppose a good 787, 777 and A380 are also out of the question? (Except for the PMDG 777 that should come out eventually)

Now this is interesting! Couple small questions: 1. How does the airbus set pressurisation? Does it use cruise and landing field altitudes from the cruise altitude and destination airport set in the FMS? 2. What do you mean by "reference airport" and when do you need GPS coordinates on a normal Boeing (except for initial INS pos init)? 3. Is there a good A319/20/21 for FSX that models everything (i.e. a PMDG-like model)? 4. Not related, but if GPS were to fail, does the FMC on any of these aircraft have the ability to navigate using the older methods? (like VOR/NDB/ADF)?

You mean the MD-11 has automation features the 737 doesn't have? Could you elaborate a bit? In reply to all the threads saying that, I should clarify that these questions were just out of curiosity. I was so impressed with the auto-land it got me thinking whether the plane could do everything else... I normally fly small GA aircraft (since most of my real-world flying experience is on microlights) - in fact my favourites to date are the RealAir Lancair Legacy and the RealAir turbine duke. However the PMDG 737 does have a nice feel for hand-flying. My only complaint so far is that the panel has quite a bit of dirt and wear modelled into it, so I'd have liked the option to turn off dirt (like RealAir provide with their aircraft) to get that "new plane" feel

I just got the PMDG 737 and though I haven't had the time to read the manual (and I've never used an FMS before today), I was easily able to get it to autoland on IFR approaches. My question is, would it be possible to automate the entire flight? Landing this plane is pretty automatic - the plane flares and touches down by itself and autobrakes and armed spoilers stop it without pilot intervention. So here are my specific questions: 1. Is there a way to automate takeoff? On stock FSX planes you can just set the autothrottle and engage the altitude hold and the plane will rotate and take off (without stalling if you're lucky). Is there a way to get the PMDG to auto rotate at Vr for example? So far my understanding is that the AP in this plane can't be activated until airborne... 2. I noticed the autopilot has a VNAV button. Before I dive into the 130-page manual, can someone tell me whether this is capable of transitioning from climb to cruise to descent to touchdown without pilot intervention? 3. Last question - can all these be chained together wihout pilot input? For example, imagine there's a pressurisation failure and both pilots lose consciousness during the climb stage. Can the plane be set up in such a way (before the incident) that the plane continues the rest of the flight completely on its own and safely touches down and stops at the planned destination airport? (assuming traffic gets out of the way and ILS freq and crs heading were already set up and approach already programmed, and autobrakes on and spoilers armed) Edit: I meant to post this to the FSX forum. Can it be moved there please?