My feedback on the CRJ

[PineappleWizard 44]

I'll start by saying that I really want to like this aircraft, but in it's current state, it is not as easy as I'd hoped. I'm going to try to post the issues I've been having in as much detail to help fix this airplane.

Sim specs:

P3D v4

CRJ 1.0.1
AS16
Orbx Global +OpenLC
Various airport scenery
Latest C++ 2015
Lately I have been doing several flights, KLAS-KSAN, KCLT-KDCA, KMDW-KMSP, KMSP-KMDW. Most have gone smoothly. I'm happy to report that the yoke hide issue has gone for me, as well as the NAV tracking issues. I have yet to have the CRJ stray off a SID or STAR. 
The most important issue I've had is loading arrivals and departures into the FMS. Not always does it put in all the correct waypoints, especially when importing a flightplan from simbrief. I found that the RST9 departure out of KMSP was missing waypoints no matter how I loaded it into the FMS, whether it be via flightplan, selecting runway first vs selecting arrival first. It would only load the FGT waypoint, missing the FOBUG DOKTR CORDY and RST waypoints. Even when I chose the ALO transition the only waypoints displayed on the LEGS page are FGT and RST. Now on to loading simbrief flightplans. When loading a flightplan from simbrief into the CRJ, it seems to miss most of the waypoints on the SID and STAR so I have to go through and manually select them to get the full correct procedures. I've added some screenshots of this happening. I don't know if this is a problem with how simbrief exports the flightplans, but something tells me it's the CRJ. 

Next I'll address the autopilot/FD. I find oftentimes in a turn on the route in NAV mode with autopilot engaged, the FD will show a turn in the opposite direction than the airplane is turning. It will slowly turn back and catch up. IIRC this has been addressed in another thread. The aircraft also likes to "wobble" a bit when crossing waypoints. For example in cruise I have a series of waypoints that are all in a straight line and don't require a turn from one to the next. Upon crossing these points in NAV mode the airplane will roll right and left slightly, kind of readjusting itself, sometimes 10 degrees or more from the course. I don't know if this is a thing on the real CRJ, never noticed flying on one IRL, as many other aircraft in P3D don't do this to the same extent. 

I've also noticed some problems on the MFD in the window/vnav mode and the time/fuel predictions. It shows a jumbled mess of overlapping numbers. I have only seen this on the ground before taxiing out for departure or after parking at the gate. I'll post a screenshot as well.
Something else I've seen on the MFD with this information is that it doesn't seem to update until crossing a waypoint. In the screenshot I've added you can see it says that TOD is in 35nm, however it is clear that on the MFD I am only a few miles from TOD. 

 

Another thing, I don't know if it is a result of my lack of knowledge, or a bug, but I find that the Auto frequency tuning when flying an arrival onto an ILS doesn't seem to always work. I have only seen it work once, and I couldn't find anything in the manuals about how this happens. I have both bearing pointers on VOR1 and yet I've never seen it update to the ILS freq on approach. Does the FMS have to cycle through the IAF or FAF maybe? Is there a way to "activate approach" within the FMS? 

 

One final thing. Boy I do apologize for the wall of text. As you can tell I am passionate about this airplane and I really want it to succeed. Anyway, while flying the ENDEE4 arrival into KMDW this evening, the autopilot suddenly disconnected, the aircraft rapidly pitched up, both engines shut down and pretty much everything was erased and went dark. I don't believe anything I did triggered this event, I was just flying along when it happened. It seemed like it just suddenly reverted to a cold and dark panelstate, all the faults showed up on the display. Weirdly enough the aircraft also started making quite a strange sound. I took a quick video of this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_pQueiz7mjA&feature=youtu.be Sorry for the quiet audio in the video but if you turn up your system volume, a strange whining noise can be heard. The aircraft was still controllable but I was quite flabbergasted when I had to log off vatsim because I had an entire system failure basically. Now I've had some controllability issues with the CRJ and Active Sky turbulence, but never has it caused autopilot disconnect and shut off my airplane and there was good weather on the arrival. I've heard this aircraft also doesn't play nice with FSUIPC. I have FSUIPC installed only for autosave with the PMDG birds. I don't have it set to do anything else and I've been using the CRJ with FSUIPC installed for quite some time with no issues. 

 

I think that's all I can think of for now. Thank you for bearing with me and reading through this, I hope it helps. I know you all are working hard and things will hopefully be sorted.

 

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[blahhh 41]

Departure and arrival procedures shouldn't be a part of a flightplan. It will be provided by ATC.
Moreover, check the airac cycle in simbrief  (default is 1603).

[marcdu 2]

vor 4 Stunden , blahhh sagte:

Departure and arrival procedures shouldn't be a part of a flightplan. It will be provided by ATC.
Moreover, check the airac cycle in simbrief  (default is 1603).

This is not correct... it depends on the country regulations... For example in Germany it is necassary to file a departure procedure in the flightplan.

 

Germany AIP ENR 1.10-7.3.1 :  " 7.3.1 For IFR arrivals and departures, the published coded designators of the relevant standard instrument departure and arrival routes shall be inserted. For flights on ATS routes, the appropriate coded designators shall be inserted."

[PineappleWizard 44]

I also forgot to mention that this latest build is a lot more stuttery FPS wise than previous versions. 

[PineappleWizard 44]

Anything on update progress? The support forums have been a bit quiet lately. It's been nearly a month since I've flown the CRJ and I'm wondering if there's any chance it'll be updated soon. I grow weary of flying the same three Boeings available for P3D v4 at the moment. 

[Emi 5161]

Some new beta files have just been delivered to the testers some days ago. Certainly not scheduled for an imminent release, but there is work going on.

[winged532 5]

On 9/8/2017 at 6:02 PM, XFalcon750 said:

 

One final thing. Boy I do apologize for the wall of text. As you can tell I am passionate about this airplane and I really want it to succeed. Anyway, while flying the ENDEE4 arrival into KMDW this evening, the autopilot suddenly disconnected, the aircraft rapidly pitched up, both engines shut down and pretty much everything was erased and went dark. I don't believe anything I did triggered this event, I was just flying along when it happened. It seemed like it just suddenly reverted to a cold and dark panelstate, all the faults showed up on the display. Weirdly enough the aircraft also started making quite a strange sound. I took a quick video of this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_pQueiz7mjA&feature=youtu.be Sorry for the quiet audio in the video but if you turn up your system volume, a strange whining noise can be heard. The aircraft was still controllable but I was quite flabbergasted when I had to log off vatsim because I had an entire system failure basically. Now I've had some controllability issues with the CRJ and Active Sky turbulence, but never has it caused autopilot disconnect and shut off my airplane and there was good weather on the arrival. I've heard this aircraft also doesn't play nice with FSUIPC. I have FSUIPC installed only for autosave with the PMDG birds. I don't have it set to do anything else and I've been using the CRJ with FSUIPC installed for quite some time with no issues. 

Same thing happened to me.  Both engines shut down, flightplan lost.  The whining sound turned out to be the ram air turbine  extended near the nose of the aircraft.  I still have not found out how to stow or extend it.  All happened out of the blue as I was flying along on a crowded vatsim night into Frankfurt.  

[dave71k 2]

I'm still utterly dumbfounded as to how this product was deemed fit for release, I've never seen such backlash from the customers for an addon and even worse such denial and head burying from the devs. The thing was pretty much unusable at launch and to this day the LNAV issue is still on going. 

[DaveCT2003 2553]

4 hours ago, dave71k said:

I'm still utterly dumbfounded as to how this product was deemed fit for release, I've never seen such backlash from the customers for an addon and even worse such denial and head burying from the devs. The thing was pretty much unusable at launch and to this day the LNAV issue is still on going. 

 

Well Dave, we have thousands of customers who don't have any problem with the LNAV or any other major issues that some customers have -  but we are concerned that some people have had issues and we are working hard to over come this issue.. 

 

As I've stated several times here in the forums, not one of the Beta team had any major issues with the release candidate.  This means that the problems some have must have something to do with the differences between their computers and the computers of those who aren't suffering these problems.  In other words, if we don't know about a problem, we don't know about the problem.  If we had known prior to release, then of course we wouldn't have released it - nobody at Aerosoft is stupid.

 

Now, based on your comments I have to assume that you're either very new to the flight simulation community, or you just haven't purchased other high end commercial aircraft at release.  The most celebrated PMDG model (the NGX) had serious problems at release (and none of their Beta Testers/Dev Team had seen them either), as have many other high-end addons.

 

The Aerosoft In House Beta Team is comprised of pilots certified on the platform and some of the most experienced flight simmers in the community, and they know how to test software.  I myself am professionally certified in software testing, and I flew the wings off the CRJ for well over a year prior to release with many of my flights being live streamed to the community. Anyone who watched them could see that I didn't have the issues that some people are reporting.

 

We do believe people are suffering from these problems, and Hans has been working to re-write code to overcome them for people who experience these problems. But it's difficult because he can't reproduce them either.  Again, there is some type of difference between the software on the computers.

 

It is noteworthy that the few who took Mathijs advice and reinstalled Windows and all their flight sim software had the problems disappear.

 

Finally, it is common for people not to have any issues with one piece of software, and then have problems with another.  We see this all the time in the flight sim community, and it almost always points to a problem on the customer's system, a problem that doesn't show itself until a new product is installed.  I'm not suggesting that is the issue here, I merely state this to address those posts we see where customers say "all my other aircraft work just fine, so it has to be the CRJ". There are a lot of variables that most customers aren't aware of and such comparisons, while they might seem logical to customers, just don't pan out when looked at from the development side.  But rest assured that we do listen, and we take everything our customers say seriously.

 

Next time you feel like criticizing a flight sim developer, I might suggest reading past staff comments or at least asking some questions first.  In this case, your criticism is unfounded, way off base, and it was addressed before. That doesn't mean that we don't understand your frustrations and that we're not concerned, we do, and we are.  After all, we are flight simmers too!

 

My best wishes to you, and hope that our upcoming update resolves the problems you're having.

 

 

 

 

 

[blahhh 41]

With the weird behaviour you are describing, the best advice that you could read here is to try first loading a default LM aircraft.

[winged532 5]

I have now flown about 15-16 flights in the CRJ.  I have only had one flight where everything crashed mid-flight.  I have flown two more after the mid-flight crash, both without any incidents.  I will continue to fly because this aircraft is a hoot to fly, Hopefully it will continue to fly well in the future as all my other aircraft fly.

[canadagoose 9]

Quote:

 

“It is noteworthy that the few who took Mathijs advice and reinstalled Windows and all their flight sim software had the problems disappear.”

 

Not a chance I would take a blind shot in the dark, going through all that hassle, waste 2 days of my time just to see if, maybe I can get a performance improvement in the CRJ. No way, the TFDi 717 was a slide show for me when I purchased it. Now, after several updates I am satisfied with the performance I am getting. I just hope Aerosoft can do the same for their customers in short order and not let these seemingly menial issues that we have get swept under the rug. As always I am confident Aerosoft can and will make this product even better than it already is. 

 

Regards

[Aerosoft Team [Inactive Account] 51558]

It's not a shot in the dark, it's a fact. Hans has been doing multiple teamviewer sessions with customers who had problems and in all but one (that's still being looked at) we found out their system was porked in one way or another. Almost always the issue is with runtimes that are corrupted. Keep in mind there are installers for FS add-ons that mess these things up.

[canadagoose 9]

Fair enough. I look forward to the next update.

[herky20 13]

My feed back is that the latest release of the CRJ runs perfectly well on my system.

 

Now that's "my system". No two PC's can ever be identical, so software can never run in an identical way on every system.

 

My hats off to Hans and Aerosoft for producing such a good simulation. 

 

Finally, when you have the makers of the operating system, in this case Windows 10, producing "security updates" that prevent certain 32 bit programmes, (P3dv3) from executing properly, then that's an example of how precarious our flight sim hobby can be. The security update for Windows 10 (ends in 788) was recognised by MS and LM as causing trouble. MS are going to release a "fix" in a couple of weeks, apparently! No rush, presumably because it doesn't affect their main "business" customers. Flight simmers being just a niche market!

 

Our flight sim hobby consistes of many add on programs, all running on different simulation platforms, all running on different operating systems, all running on different computers, all with widely differing components, in different states of tune. It's a wonder anything actually works!

 

Best regards

David

[winged532 5]

My system runs on Windows 7.  Nothing updated by Microsoft for about two years, my crash was not caused by any update.  My question is...How can I fly many flights without any problems and then for no "apparent" reason have a major malfunction that shuts down the engines, deletes the flightplan,disconnects the autopilot, and deploys the ADG?  Then complete three more flights without any problem!  

My hope is that this is not treated as a result of my  "system" state.  Love this aircraft otherwise!

[herky20 13]

On 10/22/2017 at 7:34 PM, winged532 said:

My system runs on Windows 7.  Nothing updated by Microsoft for about two years, my crash was not caused by any update.  My question is...How can I fly many flights without any problems and then for no "apparent" reason have a major malfunction that shuts down the engines, deletes the flightplan,disconnects the autopilot, and deploys the ADG?  Then complete three more flights without any problem!  

My hope is that this is not treated as a result of my  "system" state.  Love this aircraft otherwise!

 

Here is a real long shot. I use Windows 7, P3dv3. When I first installed the CRJ, I noticed a few problems. I saw that the CRJ installer had installed two C++ files as well as the aircraft. These were the 2015 and 2017 C++ files. Since I already had these files installed, I deleted the newly installed ones. I had no further problems. 

 

My reasoning was that perhaps these files were either a corrupted install in some way? I really had no other evidence! However, since I already had them on my system, I decided I did not need them. I uninstalled them from Control Panel.

 

Like I said before, no two systems are alike, so my "solution" most probably would not be any one else's "solution". But it illustrates my point. People have different installs.

 

Hope my anecdotal story helps. 

 

Best regards

David