Embraer Regional Jet 135/140/145 Panel Project

By Andrew Herd (15 April 2002)

he Embraer 145 is an advanced regional twin jet which is available in a variety of passenger configurations. Embraer may not be that well known in the US or Europe, but it is Brazil's most profitable company, employing over 11000 people and it is responsible for nearly 3.5% of its home country's total exports. The last time I heard, Embraer was chasing Bombardier hard for the privelege of becoming the world's third largest aircraft manufacturer, its best customers in the US being American Eagle and Continental Express, which between them operate around 200 Embraer hulls.

The ERJ 145LR simulated here is 98 feet long with a 65 foot wingspan. Two AE3007A1/2 turbofans in a rear mounted configuration supply a generous 7580 pounds of thrust, which, coupled with a max takeoff weight of 48500 pounds means that the plane has a range of 1550 nm, a maximum cruise speed of 450 kias - and it climbs like a rocket. In short, if you enjoyed Yannick Lavigne's Falcon 50 and are looking for a new challenge, this ERJ is the perfect stepping stone to the big jets.

The package is an 8 Mb download, which should be extracted directly into the \FS2000 or the \FS2002 directory. Once installed, you should find you have three ERJs in American Eagle, Continental Express and Crossair liveries. The visual models are Nick Botamer FSDS designs and they are very good indeed, with full moving parts, transparent windscreens and crisp textures. The planes work well in both FS2000 and FS2002, although if you don't download the upgrades, the external lights are noticeably over-sized in FS2002, which slightly spoils the look of the aircraft in spot view. Sam Chin's .air file is more than acceptable, with the kind of handling I would associate with a highly powered aircraft in this class, best described as a cross between the Lear and a lightly-loaded 737. While the planes weren't going to be my main focus in this review, they grew on me so much that I am going to look out more of Nick's designs and Sam's flight dynamics.

The documentation supplied with the package is awesome. Much credit is due to Bruce Ullyot, who Bill Grabowski also describes as his 'chief inspiration' in the intro - I can add that the main reason you are reading this review is because Bruce kept emailing me until I gave in and downloaded the package. All I can say is, thanks Bill, I'm glad you told me about it! But the manual is not Bruce's alone, because Lou Kostyo spent more than 300 hours editing the content to make sure that it was as accurate as possible, with the result that the standard is one of the highest you are ever likely to see.

When all the pdfs are printed out, you will find yourself in charge of a 50 page Flight Deck Manual, a 20 page introductory flight manual and 7 pages of check lists and essential data. Do read it. The first twice I flew the plane I only made it as far as the water at the end of the runway at Meigs.

After the credits, the Flight Deck Manual kicks off with a six page account of Henry Cisneros' memories of flight training on the 145, a well-written piece which built an atmospheric picture of what it is like to fly one of these jets. Henry is a first officer with Continental Express and he is one of the many ERJ pilots whose input has been crucial in helping Bill and the team get this panel and the planes that come with it right.

Installation is covered on page 15, where there is also a support link - which is only to be used for problems which are not covered in the manual! I am constantly amazed by people who email me asking questions which can be found in the first line of help files that they have clearly never bothered to read, so if you do have a question about this panel, please make sure you don't email Bill about something he has already explained in the documentation. Every minute a developer spends doing support is one that might have been spent on design.

At first glance, the panel looks very little more complex than the Lear, but appearances are deceiving. The graphics are very easy on the eye, with the subtle lighting effects for which the FPDA have become so well-known. But the moment you take a serious look at the cockpit, the amount of work that has gone into this simulation becomes obvious. Even the Electronic Attitude Director Indicator (EADI) is several times more complex than its counterpart in the Lear, with a choice of aircraft symbols, a dynamic pitch limit indicator, trend lines, low airspeed awareness bars and even V speed bugs (which are set via the Multi Function Display or MFD). Below the EADI is the Electronic Horizontal Situation Indicator (EHSI) which is about as sophisticated an instrument of this class as I have ever seen in a freeware panel. EHSI settings are controlled via yet another switch set - the Display Control Panel (DCP) and in addition to all the standard EHSI modes the instrument boasts an actual track bug and wind speed/direction indicator.

Next along the panel is the MFD, but the manual deals with the Radio Management Unit (RMU) first - by now you will understand why you need to read the manual - which has a complex, but easily understood system for tuning the dual switchable nav radios, comm radio and ADF. In the real plane, there are two RMUs, the left tuning Com1, Nav1 and so on, while the right RMU carries the second set of radios, but the team have very sensibly combined them into one unit for Flight Simulator. Make sure you read this section of the manual carefully, because the logic of the radio switching system isn't obvious unless you know how it is done.

Just to the right of the EADI/EHSI is the MFD, the most complex instrument on the panel, and one of the most intricate I have seen to date in Flight Simulator. I lost count of how many menu pages are chained to the keys at the bottom of this display, but the main pages cover takeoff settings, environmental control, fuel and hydraulics systems and the electrics. The fuel and V-speed pages will be of most interest to flight simmers.

On the far right is the Engine Indication and Crew Alerting System (EICAS), a sophisticated graphical display that tells you more than you could possibly wish to know about how the mechanics of the plane are doing. You will need to pay close attention to the EICAS in flight, because the annunciators for many vital systems, like the flaps and gear state, are found on it. The EICAS can display 30 of the 150 messages that the real ERJ unit can show, and it is backed up by a the nice lady who runs the aural warning system. To begin with you will hear her nagging you to slow down all the time - after she really gets to you, you will scour the manual and discover that the speed mode control on the Flight Guidance Controller (FGC) only sets the bug on the EADI - you have to manage the throttles yourself. Crews know the lass as Bitching Betty and it doesn't surprise me at all.

On the glareshield, left to right, you have the pushback control (very easy to use), the display control panel (fiddly little buttons, even on a 19" monitor), and the Flight Guidance Controller, which runs the Flight Director and autopilot functions.

I would say that the FGC is going to be the most problematic part of this panel for most users, because it doesn't work the way the default Mode Control Panels do. The reason for this is because Bill has designed it to work like the real thing and Microsoft took some severe liberties with the MCPs in the jets in FS2000. Some of these short cuts have been put right in FS2002, but nonetheless, you will need to clear your mind of preconceptions before you use this puppy - and RTFM, over and over, right down to the finest nuance.

Just to give you some examples, for normal operations it is necessary to couple the Flight Director to the autopilot by pressing the CPL key, the altitude selector has dual mouse zones for altering hundreds and thousands of feet - and like it engages altitude hold mode when you click directly on it, an easy trap for the unwary. Using the FGC means that you constantly have to monitor the mode annunciators on the PFD above the EADI. At this stage, those of you who get nauseous on a diet of pure acronyms might consider taking prescription medication, but stay with me.

Managing flight level changes will probably be the most difficult task many users will face after learning how to keep airspeed on the button. Just briefly, the key thing to remember is that selecting a new vertical mode, such as VS, after selecting a new altitude with the ASEL rotary knob will disengage altitude hold mode and fly the vertical mode instead. If you try and work this the other way around, all kinds of weirdness will happen. So remember - ASEL rotary first, then choose your vertical mode!

I could go on and on about this panel, but that would involve writing another manual for it and I reckon that Bruce Ullyot has already done an excellent job. So a few closing comments.

All the panel screen shots taken for this review were taken while flying the introductory flight and I strongly suggest that you follow Bill's advice and load this situation before you do anything else. One thing FSUIPC users should remember is to check the 'power with flat battery box' or they will end with a dark cockpit early on in the lesson. The tutorial is a great way of learning how to fly the plane - and there is a lot to learn. Only once you are confident about the panel's many functions will you be able to really enjoy this sim to the maximum.

A couple of things do stand out about this ERJ package, apart from the quality of the panel and planes. The first is the fantastic forward views in 2D cockpit mode (there isn't a virtual cockpit). These are very close to the forward view the pilots have in the original, but they take some getting used to and to begin with you will find that you flare with the nose way too high. The other thing is the way this package hangs together, though I should point out that there there are still a few minor bugs when it is used in FS2002, even after applying the patch.

Overall, the ERJ is a fantastic package, not least thanks to Kevin Au of Continental Express and Andreas Fuchs of Crossair, two ERJ pilots who gave a great deal of their time to make the panel fell as real as it does. About the only thing the panel lacks is an FMC, but given that it took Wade Chafe about a year to program the unit in the payware 767 PIC sim, this is excusable! What we really need is for a dedicated programmer to sit down and write the code for a freeware FMC - if someone did that, they would earn the undying respect of the flightsim community. Support and patches are available from the Embraer ERJ Panel and Airplane Support Forum http://www.fsnordic.net/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.cgi?board=erj

Thanks to Nick Botamer, there are already many more ERJ liveries to download from FlightSim.Com, the America West Express plane shown above being one of them. All I can say is I want to see more from these guys. A great package from a great team.