Eyaen

That is Eaglesoft's website, so in that regard there honestly is no "you guys", but that line is not correct and I'm certain that theyd' be happy to correct it. While it appreciated that you have pointed out the error, it would have been more appropriate to not do it in a form of attack of character. How in the world was I supposed to know that it was an error on the feature list? I didn't know I was pointing out an error in a feature list, certainly not with out the benefit of any hindsight. I thought I was asking a legitimate question about the product. That was certainly no personal attack. Forgive me for being misled by what I've read on the product page. Now, I had just written another two paragraph response but I deleted it because I'd rather just bow out of this. I accept responsibility for my first post being antagonistic in nature (based on past experiences here I'm afraid). I just shouldn't have gotten involved because I didn't honestly expect any other outcome. Some things never change.

Exclusive: Collins Proline 21 Flight Management System 3000 supports FS Data Base You guys said it, not me.

Except that as far as I can tell the XLS is geared towards simulation enthusiasts, not as a professional training platform. If it were, I'd expect you'd have advertised it as such to some degree. If you're counting on the simulation enthusiasts as a major part of your customer base, you shouldn't be at all surprised by the continued questioning of the navigation database support. I'd wager that the questioning will continue indefinitely. And even if that were the 100% honest truth, then why are you willing to support the default sim nav database which has much less data points than Navigraph? It would seem to me that if you were willing to go that far that Navigraph would be an easier addition (please save me the 'you don't know anything about gauge programming' bit). That said, I digress because I'm not going to get caught up in this years-old run around argument. I just want to point out a few observations that I feel are fair points for everyone's consideration.

It's going to take you a WEEK to take some screen grabs and post them? Seriously?! By the way, for those that don't know, Mindstar and RealNav are the same people. If you don't believe me, check out the addresses: https://www.mindstaraviation.com/contact.html & http://www.realnavdata.com/contactus.html That should answer a lot of your questions as to why there is no Navigraph support since they're historically vague about it.

Certainly and for our purposes in the sim it doesn't really matter which way you do it; it's totally a matter of preference 🙂 It's an interesting subject though and to the original matter at hand: why does the power loss occur in the sim doing the standard start vs the cross gen start? Even with a work around I'm still curious about this as it's unusual behavior even based on the sim logic.

I raised the question at work (I work in an aircraft maintenance department doing data analysis) and the consensus we came to was that it's probably because the generators have a hard time with the starting load (plus what ever re-charge it's still supplying the battery). No one had specific knowledge of it but everyone thought it sounded like it was a loading issue. Based on my previous assumptions and the conversations we had at work, my thoughts are that the while the generator can handle the starting load of the opposite engine, it's probably near it's capacity and thus very hard on it to do so and is therefor not the preferred starting method.

Well I'm glad I'm not crazy and I remember correctly what I saw even though it's getting on for 20 years since it happened. I seem to remember him explaining why he did it as well but that's long since been displaced in my head by other useless aviation and music trivia if he indeed had. The other thing I remember was the use of differential power to assist steering whilst taxiing. He would drop the engine of the direction he was turning into beta/reverse i.e. right engine for right turn. It seemed to assist the tighter 90° turns quite nicely. That experience really made me fall in love with the Cheyenne. Really a great airplane and I'm glad it's back in P3Dv4 thanks to Carenado and Bill's mod; I had really missed the DA Cheyenne. Anyway, I suspect that it might have something to do with excess loading on the starter generator on that particular range (Cheyenne I-II). The fact that you have to push the engines to 68% before you can switch on the generator might be telling.

Some one that knows more than will have to comment but I remember the pilot doing that when I sat right seat in a Cheyenne I once. I *think* this was also the procedure I observed when I got to sit right seat for a B1900D run up. The gen was switched off right before advancing the condition lever so the generator was used to help spin up the engine. Not sure the reasoning behind it. I was just doing it in the Cheyenne in the sim because it's what I had observed.

To follow up, I flew the Cheyenne some and tried a few different ways. I seem to have found a work around. I start an an engine (in this case I started the right engine first), turn on the generator and push the power to 68% and allow the ammeter load to drop to an acceptable level. Now instead of turning the generator off for the second engine start, I leave it on and the power at 68%. The second engine starts normally and there are no power reductions. To my knowledge this isn't the correct way to start the second engine but it works for the sim at least.

I haven't flown the plane too much lately but I never did find a work around or procedure that cures that problem. It doesn't have any long term detrimental effects on the plane at least; it's just a strange bug to experience every start up.

That would be really neat! I don't know of any other sim aircraft that takes this into consideration. I wish I had some data to give you to help but all I have to go on is my experience on the ramp and when aircraft would need to be positioned into the wind. It would probably take about a 10kt tailwind before we'd start running into that issue.

RE: Point #9 I also find that I get very high EGT on start up even on only moderately warmer days. I routinely see temps over the starting limit with an OAT of 30C/80F or slightly less. I've been flying around the Caribbean and I'm wondering when I'm going to get my first hot start. In cooler temps I was getting more reasonable EGT temps. An idea for more realism would be to take into account relative wind e.g. headwind=cooler start and tail wind=hotter start.

RE: Taxiing I calibrate my throttles with FSUIPC and utilize the reverse range. With the throttles at my idle 'detente' (i.e. that spot I tell FSUIPC where idle is) the plane rapidly gains speed. I have a Saitek quadrant and I make idle around '25' line so anything below is reverse range. I use the first 1/4-1/3 of the reverse range to control my speed and that works pretty well for me. I push it up towards idle to gain speed when I need it and then leave them part way into the reverse range to more or less sustain speed. It's incredibly difficult to find a sweet spot that just maintains speed so I end up giving it a bump and then pulling it back and letting it coast until I need to bump it again - very much like what he does in the video. He even comments that he just brings them over the gate to get some speed and them pulls them back. TL:DR if you have registered FSUIPC, use the calibration facility to have a reverse range in your throttle travel and use that to control you taxi speed.

Thanks Bill, I will give this a try. The odd thing about the engine loading is that there is no systems logic behind it. I.e. The gen isn't on and furthermore the bus ties are off. The second engine starts just fine on battery power alone after it's been re-charged after the initial engine start as per the POH. The first engine should sit and run happily. An odd bug indeed. Something I just thought of though- I'm going to closely monitor battery voltage next time and see if the drop in battery voltage corresponds with the slowing of the engine. I have a sneaky suspicion that it will.

Two questions: 1. During start up, shortly after starting the second engine (the order doesn't appear to make a difference) the engine I started first will slow way down and the oil temp comes up as though there's a heavy load on the engine. I've followed the procedure in the POH and I've performed some variations with different bus tie and generator configs and even with the bus ties and gen off it still winds down. It comes back up again and I can keep doing more testing to try and isolate the issue but it seems odd to me. Am I the only one experiencing this? 2. Would it be possible to include a GPU in a future update? If you don't start an engine very quickly after powering up the aircraft, you will not have enough battery power to start an engine. This morning I tried to simply put my route into the GNS before starting up and it had already drained the batter down to ~22v. This also brings to mind the question as to whether or not I should be using FSUIPC's battery life function. I am currently not since most of the planes I fly circumvent that inherently, however, the Cheyenne seems to suffer from a pretty short battery life. Would using that facility help and would it cause any potential conflicts with the mod? Loving the mod otherwise. I really can't say enough; it's fantastic work. Ian