Duckair
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Posts posted by Duckair
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Hi,
Can anyone help please? My installation of FSX won't run, keeps freezing at the splash screen. I've tried rolling back to a restore point and repairing the installation but neither of them worked. Looks like I'll have to do an uninstall/install to get it working again.
Before I do the uninstall I'd like to try to rescue my pilot log file with all the flights I done recorded in it. Please can anyone tell me what it is called and where it is located? Anyone had any experience of this happening and did they manage to get the old file recognised in the new installation?
Very many thanks for your help!
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You see I was hoping he'd take a look at it and just charging in and go and fix it without noticing
And you had to go ahead and remind him :roll:
But you have to admit ducted fans just look so cool!!!!
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Thanks for that Ken,
I've been doing other things with flight sims for a week so I'm running from memory here.
As you decrease the prop % rpm all goes well until about 70% - 75% when the noise increases and the prop % rpm just falls through the floor. I've not hung around to see what the aircraft is doing at this point because I've put the levers back where I found them
'Wasn't me! I never touched that!' :shock:
I'll have to have a go tonight. Having first got to a few thousand feet - just in case . . .
Kind Regards,
Cliff
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The short answer is keep these two gauges out of the red zone at all time. Even on takeoff you should avoid overtorquing the engines. The torque gauges each have a slender red line on them. That is the limit of engine power you should command with the throttle levers.
Well, I'm amazed. I might have been doing the right thing all along
I noticed right from the start that the rpm gauge went over the red line at take off and stayed there all through the climb out. I thought 'this can't be good'. So, I experimented with the prop levers. Now, when I line up for take off, I set them so they are almost in a vertical position and then run the engines up. The prop speed peaks just under the red line and the turbine needle stays out of the red. I seem to get a better acceleration as well, Once the flaps are up and I'm in the climb out I set them to 85% and then start playing with the trim to give me the desired rate of climb (usually 800 fpm).
I only return the levers to the max settings when I've reduced the power and I know that moving the lever won't take me beyone the red line.
You get slightly better fuel consumption rates as well
I suppose when 1.1 is released I'll have to relearn all this again Kind Regards,
Cliff
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Tu-95 for me please.
Failing that I'll have an Air Tractor - please can you include glider tug in with the options as well?
Or an An-2 would be nice . . .
http://www.warbirdalley.com/an2.htm
Kind Regards,
Cliff
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Many Thanks Skybird04,
Bought the sim yesterday and have had loads of fun with it. Very quick to start up and configure. I'll confess to cheating and having the sim show me where the lift is but I'll wean myself off that over time.
Thank you for bringing it to our attention
Kind Regards,
Cliff
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The problem with aircraft is they are designed to fly. That's what they do best. The problem you have as a pilot is getting them from a state of none movement to a state of flying. It's these transitional states which cause the problems.
If you got a piece of string and put it through the nose of the Twin Otter and carried it straight back out through the tail you'd see the engines are above that line. Any push forward you get from the engines will also push down a bit as well because they are off centre. Add to that the drag from the shape of the fuselarge and it just gets worse. So, when you take the power off the aircraft has been pushing, via the trim controls, to counter the downward push of the engines. Therefore, power off means also a bit of nose up.
As much as you hate it, it is a characteristic of the aircraft. It's just that some believe it is too severe in the model of the Twin Otter when compared with the real one. So, any fix will have still some nose up when you reduce the power.
I find if I'm fighting the aircraft I'm usually fighting the wrong trim settings. Make small changes and be prepared to wait a few seconds for those changes to settle down. The first thing you observe with any change in trim settings might not be the final one. Small changes, wait, see what the final outcome is, is it what you want? work on from that.
The turn to the right is solved by a bit of alereon the opposite way. Take a look down between the seats to where the trim wheel is. See the little red rectangle to the right? That's aleron trim. Put the mouse pointer on it and scroll one click the the mouse wheel. One click at a time and see what effect it has.
Good Luck
Cliff
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Calibrate the joystick through Start > Settings > Control Panel > Game controller. and you can do it under that. Just follow the directions.
Landings, I'm still working on myself. The problem is to get from either level cruise speed or descending cruise speed to one where you can lower the flaps.
In level cruise I reduce the power, a very tiny bit, and counter the nose rise with some stick forward. The immediate effects of power off gets you some nose up but as the airspeed decays the nose comes down. So, it's power down, stick forward to counter, trim nose up, let it settle, power down etc.
Once I have the airspeed in the white zone I can deploy the flaps and that gives a rapid nose up followed by a descent. At this point I apply power and trim to either get a steady rate of descent or level flight. A little bit of anything gets you a lot of reaction so don't rush it.
If you want to descend from cruise altitude then I just trim nose down to give me the rate of descent I want. But, watch that because it seems to steadily increase as you get lower.
It seems you do have to almost drive the Twin Otter into the runway. So this makes your approach quite shallow. So far I've done little more than select an airfield and on each occasion I've made my approach lower by 500 feet. I just don't have enough information to say what is consistant and what is sheer good luck.
Flare gently. The Twin Otter will try to climb again if the nose goes beyond level. I find it's best to let the airspeed bleed off so it sinks gently onto the runway at about 70 knots - then raise the flaps so it doesn't lift off again.
That's how I'm doing it. If there is anyone out there with real experience of the aircraft I'd be grateful if you could spare the time to tell us where we're getting it very wrong.
Kind Regards,
Cliff
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I must admit my first few flights in the Twin Otter were very 'nose up'. Among the things I tried were:
Adjust the loading of the aircraft. Move the passengers from the back to the front of the aircraft.
Calibrate Joystick - huge difference which wasn't noticable in other aircraft.
-6.5 trim
10 degrees flap
Let the speed rise to 75 knots and then gently, very gently, lift the nose an inch or so, sit back and let the aircraft lift off. All you're interested in is keeping the airspeed below the flap limit.
500 ft agl and flaps off and then concentrate on a fixed rate of climb and start trimming nose down - a very little at a time - as the airspeed rises.
Might not be the right way but it makes for nice smooth take offs and leaves you free to study the handling of the aircraft. Each flight just gets better and better.
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Hi Randy,
Regrettably, I'm still running the 7600GS AGP 8x on 9.1.4.7 driver.
We had £14,000 scamed of our credit cards a week or so ago so I've got to wait a bit before I go out and spend on a new machine. It has to be a new PC because this one has gone just about as far as it can go.
Having said that it still puts in good service. I'm getting 20 fps on most of the cockpit screens for the Twotter so I'm really pleased. I get some very odd white bars over the instruments but a quick scroll through the views seems to clear it.
I haven't broke the news about a second monitor to my darling wife. She wouldn't understand - few women do. I can get by with one monitor but she needs fifty pairs of shoes. There is a logic in there somewhere but it escapes me. However, I have a cranky old flat panel in the loft which I will attach to the new video card when it arrives and bemoan it's poor performance thus setting the ball rolling for a new one.
Please, Dear God, let no wife read this or we'll all be sunk
Must dash - I hear a twotter's engines starting . . . . .
Kind Regards,
Clif
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Fantastic Thread! When you take the discussion here and apply to the aircraft everything makes sense. I've learned more in half an hour than I woud have done in a week of trial and error.
Had a great time last night just playing with the trim and power levers putting into practice the knowledge here.
Can't thank you all enough for all this.
Kind Regards,
Cliff
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Check the last line of the checklist in the manual.
Brilliant!!!!!
Might need to carry out the instruction a couple of times perhaps
Very Many Thanks to all those who took part in putting the Twotter into the market place. You've done a fantastic job and we're all very grateful.
Kind Regards,
Cliff
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(and it wobbles when I have to open the next can of beer )
Get a bigger can
Or add to the start up procedure:
'open 6 cans of beer and keep within easy reach'
Kind Regards,
Cliff
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I'm stuck at work and have a 15 mile bicycle ride home into a 20 mph SW wind and rain. Promise me you won't run out before I get there
I also need a really good excuse for the wife that says unless I have the twotter tonight I'll just wilt away . .
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Have you tried to run 'MSCONFIG'.
Run that and take a look in the start up tab. Some programs are very sneaky and fire themselves off at start up to save loading time when you actually use them.
Adobe Acrobat is one of the chief offenders for this.
Sounds like you have an up hill struggle ahead. When my PC starts to get in this frame of mind I rebuild it from scratch. It's amazing the junk you put on your machine over the months - stuff you'll never use again but taking up resources at start up.
Throw it all out and start again.
Regards,
Cliff
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OK. Not a problem. All those who want beer form a line here . .
Spirits. Oh! More of them than I expected . . It's only one of those little one shot bottles you know . I thought that would change a few minds . .
Wine? Who wants wine? No it's not chateau bottled. This is the stuff you find on the bottom shelf in the supermarket.
Ok Mathijs, Should be easy enough to count now. . . .
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No problem, just buy us all a beer and we'll forget about it
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Hi Alfred,
I run the Do-27 in FSX so what I say might not be right. This is just a guess.
I think you have broken the flaps. Don't worry, you won't get a big bill for the repair
In the manual 'Do-27 Addon Operation' take a look at the 'Kneepad' section. Do this when the engine is stopped and everything is switched off. This is called up with Shift+6. See the tags along the right hand side? Press the one at the bottom - that takes you to 'Maintenance'.
See the bit which says 'Check through the plane and systems' Put the mouse on it and left click. Now sit back and wait. After a few minutes the engineer will have done his walk around the aircraft and report back to you when the screen says 'Done see report'
Move the pointer over the words and click. It will then list what needs to be done to fix the aircraft.
Once thats out of the way click on the 'Outside Check' and top up the oil if needed.
Hopefully, your Do-27 will now fly. To pull the flap lever when sitting in the cockpit move the mouse over the lever and it will change to a hand. Press and hold the left click and the hand will grasp the lever. Keeping the button held down move the mouse towards you. The lever should move as well. This technique works with most of the levers on the panel.
Hope this works for you.
Kind Regards,
Cliff
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The ground handling of the FSX plane seems much 'weightier' with far less weather-vaning..
Got it in one! I've never done a 180 on take off before :shock: Brakes off and start rolling?? Surely not?
I do get the impression aircraft are hovering rather than moving. Then you get closer to the ground things speed up quite rapidly. I find approaches in FSX much easier. Now the question is which is more optically correct?
Kind Regards,
Cliff
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If you want to do a comparisson of Beavers then have a look at http://shadetreemicro.com/. One of the first things I did when I bought X Plane recently is buy this and see the difference. To start off with I didn't see that much. However, what Simon says about frame rate is very true. Once you get above 40 or so fps you have almost a completely different aircraft on the screen.
I've yet to get the fps in FSX above 15 on the Beaver so I can't do the comparisson the other way but if I add the bells and whistles to X Plane and slow it down the gap in handling shrinks accordingly.
If you look at http://www.x-plane.com/contact.html and scroll down to 'How Do Make My Sim Run Faster' there's some good advice on how unshackle the frame rate.
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Aaaaaahhh! (add sound of foot being caught in bear trap) The small print :oops:
I hate small print. :roll:
Glad you liked the beer. No flying for 8 hours now
Keep this up and you'll be owning your own brewery :wink:
Kind Regards,
Cliff
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Thanks for that Randy. I'd have never have thought of the Power Supply fix in a million years
I'm very grateful for the advice
Kind Regards, (and a virtual beer owed
)
Cliff
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Hi,
In my current, soon to be replaced - I hope, system I've got an Nvidia Ge Force 7600 GS graphics card. I've noticed that on the intial screen, when I choose an aircraft to fly, there are a number of horizontal white bars. Also when I fly there are most times two or three white bars over the scenery.
I'm taking it that this is a video driver problem. The driver in use came from the Nvidia site and is 6.14.11.6921 and is dated 05/12/2007. I recall from times past that the most recent driver isn't necessarily the best. Have I got the right driver or is there one better to be had elsewhere?
Many Thanks in Anticipation,
Kind Regards,
Cliff
Pilot Log File
in English
Posted
Thanks for the tips!
Jim and Simon, I tried your advice and it got a bit further loading before it gave up and wanted to go and complain to Uncle Microsoft so they nearly worked - which is a lot further than I got yesterday.
I see the point about deleting entries and it explains my position very nicely. I started a flight between two Canadian airports at low level in the Beaver. About half way through I got called away and instead of pausing the flight I let it run. When I got back about an hour later the aircraft had crashed and was trying to take offs from the airport of origin and crashing into the trees at the side of the runway. I check the pilot log later in the day and noticed I'd got about 30 more flights that I had before. Each of the crashes and automatic restarts had been recorded as a flight. Like a good, honest, little pilot I delete all the ones the system had added, and it was there I believe I killed my system!!!!
I've got an old copy of Flight Keeper 2 which I didn't install into this system so it looks like I'll be using that in future and Uncle Microsoft can go write a better flight logger, which is equally as bad as his flight planner
Again, very many thanks for the help. It really is greatly appreciated