arrowspace90

I love a study level sim aircraft, even if these days I am less of a study level studier. As a retired pilot from the airlines I thought I would try to step into something really different. Well, this aircraft is certainly challenging. I had to watch a lot of videos on YouTube just to get it set up and running. It was challenging just to get it into the air, and I was (and still am) often frustrated. Now, after a couple of months of trying to learn it, I find it is still a struggle, absent formal training. I find that I much enjoy messing with it, and takeoffs and landings are not terribly difficult. It can be really fun to take around the sky and into smaller airports. What do I not like? That's easy to answer at my untrained level. The ATS, auto-throttle system seems quite clunky and unintuitive. If you get the steps right to arm it up, it usually works without issues. If it should unexpectedly fail on you? Good luck getting it re-engaged. Here, they really need to put in a system more like an airliner. In the mainline jets, the A/T is just a little paddle switch, arm it and forget about it, it works perfectly every time. Not so in the Challenger. The other system I really struggle with is the VNAV. Again, without the formal training, VNAV seems like an afterthought in the Challenger. It would rather fly around using the older, less precision V/S inputs. When I have a STAR in the FMS with lots of crossing restrictions, I never am quite sure what the 650 in VNAV will do. Sometimes it figures a TOD point that is a couple of hundred miles from the first step down. What is it thinking? Other times, with no discontinuities (all the dots connected) to the runway, it will make the first restriction, perhaps even the second one, and then just sign off. I have to come in with V/S to try to salvage the arrival. Does the real airplane do this?? Hard to imagine that being the case. For me at present, the Challenger VNAV has all the sophistication of a 90s era turboprop. The 737 VNAV makes every crossing restriction, every time. You don't even have to pay much attention to it. Both jets may require some speed brake. Hopefully I will eventually get the hang of this cute and interesting airplane.

I just got a new Bravo Throttle Quad because my previous one had a throttle slippage problem that was maddening. I plugged in a brand new Bravo that I bought and they aren't cheap. I went to my fav airplane at the moment, Black Square King Air. The left start switch, using the mouse, will not go up into the start position. It will move from the middle position down to off, but not up to start. What a strange glitch, what could cause this? Any suggestions?

When using V/S, I can get about the rate of descent I need thanks to the map with the arc (aka the "banana"). But if I have to get down as quickly as possible, what rate should a push of the "DSC", descent key, produce? I tried it a couple of times and it works, boy does it! I was getting a 4000 fpm rate and the monitor was shrieking "pull up, pull up". Well of course I did, but why would it give me that much? In the real 737, the Lvl Chg button never produces 4000 feet per minute. Something like half that would be more appropriate. Is this something I can set? I'm perplexed. Where is the documentation?

Holy cow! I didn't know I could do this! I just clicked on it and it worked as you said. Thanks so much, this will really help me in the future.

I'm still fairly new to the BS King Air, but I like it a lot. I have the GTXNi. Today I was flying into Santa Barbara California. Just east of the airport, there are high hills that make you stay at 4400 feet. When you're clear, you have to really drop down to the sea level airport. Since the A/P control panel is out of view, I have to look down there away from the flight instruments. Instead of selecting V/S and trying to get a good rate down, I thought it would be better to hit the Descend key. Well, that produced a descent rate of almost 4000 feet per minute! So steep that the voice warning was telling me to pull up. This can't be right. Why does it command such a steep descent? Is it adjustable? What's the best way to make a fast but reasonable descent in the King Air? I don't know of a way to put that A/P panel up where I can see it.

I have a new Bravo so I can fly the ATR. I set it up using tutorial from SimHangar. For a couple of weeks it worked fine on the ATR. I also use it for PMDG737 and XP12 737, with profiles for each. Then on ATR, #1 throttle started moving out of Notch position, falling to flight idle. I would move Bravo to reset it, but it would quickly fall again. I yesterday tried deleting all throttle 1 assignments and reassigning them. That worked for 1 flight. Now it is either at full reverse position or full throttle. No in between. The other throttle works fine. The 737 doesn’t appear to be affected. What should I try? How can I tell the difference between an assignment conflict and a hardware problem? I lack expertise to fix this. Can someone suggest a strategy beyond “Check for conflicts”? I really like Bravo and I just want it to work.