Several Boeing 737 Type Issues
Several Boeing 737 Type Problems
Dear PM-Team,
as long-term user of the PM suite I collected quite a lot of descrepancies in the 737 Boeing software suite. Most of them are certainly easy to correct. I decided to post the most important ones here right now and hope these points can be fixed in the near future. All facts have been verified by myself in the real 737-800, since this is my day-to-day working place... I'm sure Jonathan Richardson can confirm these issues, too. Let me start with point no. 1 :cool:
1) When tuning a DME-only station on NAV1 or NAV2, the previously visible VOR direction pointer should be removed. The pointer is annoying and wrong here since DME station has NO VOR part.
2) On the APPROACH REF page: if I select a flap setting for landing (e.g. 15°), I should get a certain VREF displayed on the speed tape. But it displays ALWAYS the Vref40, which is way too low for a flaps 15 landing. I think that the problem derives from the fact, that Enrico did not reserve an offset for a "variable" Vref, but only for Vref40 (which is 0x5516).
Furthermore, it should be possible to overwrite this flap-specific VREF with an own value by overtyping it in LSK 4R.
3) When pushing the INIT REF button I should not get the index page (INIT REF), but on ground I should get PERF INIT and in the air APPROACH REF.
4) Distances shown on the FIX page should display the tenth of a mile (10.x DME) if the distance becomes smaller than 20NM. The same is true for the entry of distance arcs. The FIX page should accept ranges like 12.5 or 6.6 miles. Presently it does not accept comma-separated values.
5) Let's come to the EICAS display. The fuel flow display on the upper display should NOT have an arc (like N1), but should only be displayed as a decimal value in a box. Next, the TAT display should only be shown as a whole number, there's no need to display the tenth of a degree. The N1 arc does not contain dashes for 10,30,50,70 and so on, but the real aircraft does. With these dashes, it's easier to set a specific N1 setting manually.
6) I want to remove all the messages in the Upper EICAS display like AUTOBRAKE OFF or PASS SIGNS ON. These are not present in the 737 at all. May I accomplish this myself or not?
7) One annoying error happens in one certain situation. That's the problem: 360 is set on the Course selector for NAV1 and I'm trying to track radial 360 outbound of a VOR station. Now, if I'm on radial 358 and the VOR pointer properly shows 358, the CDI should display 1 dot off track. But what it shows is 2 dots away (which means I'm at least 4 degrees offset. This happens only on the 360 radial of any VOR station. Strange, isn't it?
That's all from my personal list for now. I hope one can understand my english. As you may guess, it's not my mother language. And please don't get me wrong from my nagging. I'm very pleased with the functional range of the software suite. With the issues mentioned above, the software would be taken to a next higher level.
Best Regards,
CATIII
Several Boeing Type Issues
Hi
I would not be concerned about this as we are all fully aware of 747/777 and 737 type differences. This does not mean we are able to cater for all of them.... if only it were a perfect world.
Regards
Jonathan
Quote:
Originally Posted by
michelmvd
Hi Jonathan,
This looks an interesting number of optimalisation to the real world items for the B737.
It seems great to me that real life people are helping here, as sometimes it is not easy to find out everything from the manuals and compute things right as their should be in real world.
But I would like to ask you - please - one big favor very much, to see that this B738 adaptations don't come into conflict with other types of Boeing aircraft (B744 - B777) an vice versa if there are done for B744. Some of them are indeed the same others not. Optimalisation for the B737 has sometimes resulted in the past to incorrect things in the B744 version.
As I think it has been always the goal of PM to offer several type possibilities for cockpit projects, even you focussed now heavly on one, the small B737, your understanding is very much appractiated.
B. rgds
Michel
Serveral Boeing 737 Type Issues
>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
:roll:[/QUOTE]
Several Boeing 737 Type Issues
>[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
Several Boeing 737 Type Issues
>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