Phenom 300 released...first impressions

[gunther 167]

 

 

easily the worst Carenado release I've ever bought

 

Agree!

 

Anyway, after a few trials and tribulations, and a few rocket-like climbs, I figured out how to make the AP capture the assigned altitude, at least on climb. My procedure:

 

Before take-off turn on: FD, NAV, YD

Set 250 with SPD SEL

Set assigned altitude with ALT SEL.

 

After take-off, accelerate to ~230 kts and engage AP and FLC. (It will overshoot on the SPD SEL, still trying to work out the best speed to do this).

 

Here’s the trick. Once established in a stable climb, press AP to disengage it, then AP again followed by FLC. This will make it level off properly at whatever is selected at ALT SEL. If you need to increase your SPD SEL during the climb, do so incrementally, at no more than 2-3 kts at a time, otherwise she’ll porpoise!

 

Haven’t figured out a way to do the descent yet. Carenado better fix this one in a hurry!

[PaulGR 168]

Don't worry guys. I'm sure they are already working on new, amazing, revolutionary model of a different airplane haha

[gunther 167]

Oh, in addition to my last ... you only have to do this once. Any subsequent climbs you don't need to do the AP off/on bit.

 

I stumbled onto this accidentally, after realising that after my first landing during a session the AP was behaving better (at least with levelling off). So I figured it must have something to do with having disengaged the AP before landing...

[N405GJ 36]

Can anyone that has both the Hawker and the 300 tell me which one has the better frame rates.

I can't. I learned my lesson with the Hawker. It pains me to see the potential here, and the total disregard for systems quality. If I could borrow their texture talent for our in development Lear 35, my gosh, the community would not know what to do.

[zmak 331]

I can't. I learned my lesson with the Hawker. It pains me to see the potential here, and the total disregard for systems quality. If I could borrow their texture talent for our in development Lear 35, my gosh, the community would not know what to do.

I would pay pmdg prices in a flash if that were ever to happen

[Guest Mik75]

I don't need PMDG study level for every plane I fly in the sim. But FLC and levelling off at a preselected altitude should be nothing one needs to write about in a forum, right?

[FLIGHTO 8]

I don't need PMDG study level for every plane I fly in the sim. But FLC and levelling off at a preselected altitude should be nothing one needs to write about in a forum, right?

 

Well said.... I am still speechless on this release... I cant believe they release a/c with these issues over and over and over.... Its common sense to evolve from release to release and apply bug fixes into newer software... Instead these releases are getting worse. I am just speechless.

[C525B 86]

I just spent the last 3 hours of a perfectly good vacation day indoors and attempting to dissect the P300 autopilot code.  They have long sections of code, commented out, remaining as a legacy to the Hawker, S/II, and even as far back as the PC-12.  Basically, it's a hack job of a hack job of a hack job.  The relationship between the autopilot gauge (of which the code is accessible) and the code buried in the 3d model (which is not accessible) was not exactly straight-forward, but it made sense eventually.  But that's as far as I got.  The code is so poorly formatted, and there's so much completely useless junk in these XML files...I think they could solve most of their performance problems if they just went through and removed extraneous things.  For instance...the P300 has about 20 different variables which serve as timers--of the same thing--and they're all being updated 18 times a second. 

 

I really want to forward these observations to Carenado, but I have no idea how to phrase it in such a way that they'll listen and respond.  They've been very fickle in the past.

[Bert Pieke 7,585]

I went through a similar exercise with the Hawker autopilot which preceded it and made the exact same discovery..

 

As a result, the GTN mod I released has a much reduced set of autopilot code.  I also sent my changes to Carenado..

 

This is not rocket science and could be improved upon if Carenado made it a priority.

 

I am reminded of the overhead wiring I saw in the city of Hanoi.  All the old wires are still up there and it is hard to trace what actually carries a current signal and from where to where..

[qqwertz 782]

Can anyone that has both the Hawker and the 300 tell me which one has the better frame rates.

I don't own the Hawker, but I had extremely low fps initially with the Phenom 300. I starts nicely (60 fps) but within a matter of 2 minutes it dropped to 0.7 fps. Fortunately I seem to have found a solution: this behaviour does not occur if I first load another plane in my simulation (P3D 2.5 / Win 10). Frame rates then remain comparable with other addon planes (QW 146, Realair Duke) and are very nice.

 

Peter

[C525B 86]

Carenado is alleging that they will have a service pack for the P300 out today.  In the meantime, I have hacked a working A/P that captures altitudes using pitch hold or V/S, and displays *mostly* correct annunciations on the PFD by using the default FSX altitude hold.  I'm working to add FLC back into the A/P and see if I can reprogram the custom capture mode that's required to get it to level-off.

 

What I'm saying is that there's hope for this one.  So far I've put in about 5 hours flying and 6 hours hacking, and I'm really happy with the result.  It's a labor of love, clearly, but we're all hobbyists here, right?  Now, I do believe that Carenado deserves a chance to fix this on their own.  That's not to say we should expect great things--they have a well-established pattern--but I do not intend to distribute hacked up parts of their code until it's clear that they're done supporting this product.

[hazahl 0]

I have just bought the Phenom 300 and have Flight1's Cessna Citation X in stock allready, so I was disappointed when I compared how their versions of G1000 wórks.  Firstly FLC didn't work properly.  I flew it yesterday from Paderborn to Bilbao and today from Bilbao to Sandefjord in norway (ENTO).  I had to "handfly" it mostly.  FLC didn't level off at cruising level.  The "CSC" button didn't work.  One reason I bought this plane was just that possibility, pluss longer range than the Citation and of course the exterior.  My previous experience with Carenado is limited.  I have v.1.3 and will follow the updates.

[Bert Pieke 7,585]

If you happen to own a Flight1 GTN 750 gauge, you might try my mods.. the autopilot is improved also.

 

http://www.simforums.com/forums/gtn-in-phenom-300_topic53360.html

 

The Carenado G1000 has both shortcomings and bugs, in my experience..

[Snakeyes 0]

PM sent. Thanks Bert.

[Bert Pieke 7,585]

Received..