Kapitan
02-06-2011, 06:56 AM
Until now Ive often prefer to fly classic analog cockpits such as 727, 747-200, L1011, DC-10s, 737-300, etc cause they are far more realistic. The analog instruments work just as expected both in real life and in the sim. The same cant be said of glass cockpits.
Those Airbus cockpits around in flightsim are very simplified, they dont have not even 40% of all the features from the original. An example, watching the Air disaster series in Natgeo I saw that Air Inter Flight A320 that crashed in France. One of the causes was a pilot error, he dial 33 in the VS indicator, instead of 3.3
The autopilot VS in real life has two modes: VS (in feet per minute), or FPA (Flight Path Angle) in degrees. The pilot switched 33 (which in the decade of the 90s read as 3300 feet per minute) instead of turning the knob to FPA and selecting 3.3 (angle of descent)
Later worlwide Airbuses changed this confusion potential mistake that took the lifes of 99 people in this crash, adding two zeros to VS feet per minute, 3300, so it cant be confused with angle 3.3 , that is confuse angles with feet per minute.
I wanted to land by non-precision approaches using the FPA in autopilot but wonder if all those paywares out there that claim to be realistic have this feature, which is actually used a lot in real landings. Do you know any freeware or payware that is a realistic autopilot? thanks.
Those Airbus cockpits around in flightsim are very simplified, they dont have not even 40% of all the features from the original. An example, watching the Air disaster series in Natgeo I saw that Air Inter Flight A320 that crashed in France. One of the causes was a pilot error, he dial 33 in the VS indicator, instead of 3.3
The autopilot VS in real life has two modes: VS (in feet per minute), or FPA (Flight Path Angle) in degrees. The pilot switched 33 (which in the decade of the 90s read as 3300 feet per minute) instead of turning the knob to FPA and selecting 3.3 (angle of descent)
Later worlwide Airbuses changed this confusion potential mistake that took the lifes of 99 people in this crash, adding two zeros to VS feet per minute, 3300, so it cant be confused with angle 3.3 , that is confuse angles with feet per minute.
I wanted to land by non-precision approaches using the FPA in autopilot but wonder if all those paywares out there that claim to be realistic have this feature, which is actually used a lot in real landings. Do you know any freeware or payware that is a realistic autopilot? thanks.