Several Boeing 737 Type Issues

[CATIII]

Hi Eugenio,

the "minimum" callouts are based on the captain's altimeter and his minimum settings because in case of an electrical power failure, his instruments are the only displays which are powered by the standby power system. And if you fly without F/D guidance and without A/P (which happens from time to time for training purposes ... and for fun ), then there's no FCC-Master specified.
Therefore Boeing decided to look at the captain's PFD settings - these are always available. And if not, you got bigger problems...

Regards,
CATIII

[eudoniga]

Got it, thanks !

Eu

[Thomas Richter]

I normally use Lbs as unit of measure, and the fuel quantity gauge in fact displays Lbs as reqd; but, when I switch to F/U after a flight, the displayed value is almost half of the used fuel. My guess is that this value is showing kilos, not pounds.

Make sure you use in FS lbs as well !

[JonathanRichardson]

>Are you able to specify a rough timeframe for adddressing these (and other) subjects?

Hi

Personally no. I would like to get to some of these things but it also depends on Enrico's schedule. I will cross check the Project Management list to see if and when they could be scheduled in the near-ish future.

>If you ask me, it's quite important. I think, it's a relatively small software change, since it's only a matter of formatting the DME value.

I agree, unfortunately there are also many other requested 'small' changes. They all take time and up up to a massive amount. I wish I could be more specific but I honestly can not. Right now the current plan is to try and release a new CDU and MCP build. It won't contain the above so do not expect that...

>This setting doesn't do anything in PFD.INI. I don't use PMSystems...

You will have to send it via an offset (as I outlined) I checked this and it worked in the simualtor.

>This offset (value 1) works perfectly. Thank you!

Okay good.

Regards
Jonathan Richardson

[eudoniga]

To Thomas: yes, I made sure that my FS9 is set to the "US System" defaults, so it doesn't think about fuel in terms of kilos ...
Now I still don't see why the GC gauge (737 EICAS PAGE) cannot convert the "Fuel Used" value from kilos to pounds, since it now displays kilos, when all other values (Fuel Flow, Fuel Quantity) are correctly expressed and displayed in Lbs.

To Jonathan: I admit that - very reasonably - big questions and big problems deserve big brains, so I understand that Enrico's (or yours') priority list just can't have these small bugs/small missing features or details on top of them ... that's okay to me.

Less reasonably, though, a restricted number of (very qualified, indeed) people is caring about a project with a very very wide goal (all Boeings, all Airbuses, RJs, GAs, Instructor Stations, and more ...), whilst smaller projects (confined to one single aircraft model) are taken care by a larger number of people ...

Quite for sure, if we are to wait that you or Enrico himself have enough time to write every single line of coding that's missing and needed, with adequate following testing, we'll never be done.

Thinking positive and proactive: isn't there anyone else that can helpfully be assigned those supposedly easier programming tasks ?

[JonathanRichardson]

>Thinking positive and proactive: isn't there anyone else that can helpfully be assigned those supposedly easier programming tasks ?

Hi

No there is not anyone else I'm afraid. And every change requires thorough thought and consideration now. We have a lot of customers running different simulators. We are not going back to the old times of people posting bug reports (many incorrectly) and only to make a change and find that we were just going around in circles, it did no good to the software at all. Enrico already outlined this will not happen again in another post somewhere here I think.

But aside from this, the original post is an "ideal" as are most requests here, there is nothing wrong with the request, I know Michael and that he is a very good real world pilot and perfectly on the ball with this type of stuff because he is also into programming and software development himself - so he understands this. I can assure you the software (especially Boeing 737 software) if set-up correctly is perfectly usable in a professional training or any other enviroment. You have to obviously tailor your demands and needs to what the software is capable of and understand you have a unique product that costs a fraction of the alternative (160,000 [when I last checked]). I was in the sim for several hours yesturday with pilot and trainee and we threw almost everything you could imagine at the simulator (and the pilots), it flew perfectly, the software performed perfectly, there were no problems, no complaints - and this is reality - I do this all the time as I have said before on this forum. We don't do long transatlantic flights, we don't mess around with all sorts of changes, we just do a training detail and understand the limitations of what we want from the simulator. The other reality is the one of "ideals" and if you have 160,000 - then you can buy into that ideal. My standards are quite high when I am faced with professionals who also have high standards, I don't want to be sitting there making excuses - and I can honestly say, I don't and nor does Enrico. I am often left wondering what everyone is doing here with the software - my thinking is, not enough attention is spent on simple things, and too much focus is on the ideal or really advanced complex stuff that you'll probably never really need anyway. The CDU route line problem is a worthy diversion from this - we had a on/off problem - but I think as many have posted in 393a it is very much improved and it will progress further.

Regards
Jonathan Richardson


[/QUOTE]

[dcutugno]

Hi Jonathan, as you said many times before you have a full working sim, but most of us have problems with their sims it would be helpful to give us as many detail as possible about your sim config, Like .air file used, aircraft.txt and build numbers of the software and also .ini file.

Best regards,

[JonathanRichardson]

>[QUOTE=dcutugno;49473]Hi Jonathan, as you said many times before you have a full working sim, but most of us have problems with their sims it would be helpful to give us as many detail as possible about your sim config, Like .air file used, aircraft.txt and build numbers of the software and also .ini file.

Hi

Builds are always the latest. And depending what we are doing also beta builds if in an area of development.

Good luck - you will get there if you work at it very hard!

Regards
Jonathan Richardson

[michelmvd]

>. I can assure you the software (especially Boeing 737 software) if set-up correctly is perfectly usable in a professional training or any other enviroment. You have to obviously tailor your demands and needs to what the software is capable of and understand you have a unique product that costs a fraction of the alternative ...
..... I do this all the time as I have said before on this forum. We don't do long transatlantic flights, we don't mess around with all sorts of changes,
.....I am often left wondering what everyone is doing here with the software - my thinking is, not enough attention is spent on simple things,..... The CDU route line problem is a worthy diversion from this - we had a on/off problem - but I think as many have posted in 393a it is very much improved and it will progress further.

[/QUOTE]

Hi Jonanthan,

I 100% agree that using the soft on a correct and well -tuned fixed system is mostly resulting in very stable operations and satisfactory to work with. Also on my B744 project we don't change every minute configuration or types. And you can fly for hours (even over the Atlantic ) without any problems.
Lot's of reported problems of users are in my personal opinion related to fine tuning - models, in-correct use of clb, crz, descend figures (airliners are flown by the numbers) and has indeed nothing to do with PM. But you has to know how to fine-tune. Sometimes it is very difficult to find out how to do it, due to lack of documentation or unawareness of the function.

I very rarely must reports real software bugs, but as you know, mostly basic B744 related items which aren't correct. (VNAV, MCP Altitude / speed handling and graffical differences)

But the biggest problem for me are these bugs with the routing input, reset, fixes-handling star / sids not working as it should soft wise, and here we don't speak about typical type related things or "never used extras" but the pure basics, used in every Boeing from B737 up to 777. Route handling is overall the same. Maybe your proffesionals don't used it so much for the training in your sim, due to the use of raw data purpose.

I hope progress is made here on that matter, and if you could communicate any status to us, it would be great. Cdu393a was no improvement on that specifc matter as you know from my reports, but generally routing handling was surely improved very much.

Looking forwards to hear from you here.

B. Rgds

Michel

PS Any change for the requested updates of the offsets in the upcoming builds?

[JonathanRichardson]

>But the biggest problem for me are these bugs with the routing input, reset, fixes-handling star / sids not working as it should soft wise,

It is all on-going.

> and here we don't speak about typical type related things or "never used extras" but the pure basics, used in every Boeing from B737 up to 777. Route handling is overall the same. Maybe your proffesionals don't used it so much for the training in your sim, due to the use of raw data purpose.

It is 50 / 50 raw data and FD work and FMC. I do not see such big problems, may be because the routes are much shorter and less room for errors.

>Any change for the requested updates of the offsets in the upcoming builds?[/QUOTE]

Not that I'm aware of.

Regards
Jonathan Richardson