Problems with Jumbo Jet Autopilot. HELP!

[Agrajag]

I go back to Flight Sim 1.0. I've owned every version since then. However, for nearly all of that time, I focused on flying props only in most GA situations.

Recently I decided to try and tackle flying the bigger jets (stock 737-400 and the 747). It's been a bit of a mess. First, I installed a file (I forget now which one I replaced) that works great starting everything in the game as turned off. All power is off, etc. I love doing manual starts, step-by-step.

The problem is that sometimes this leads to holes when I miss something. In props I'd forgotten to turn on the generators and about 30 minutes into flying the batteries would die without any indication and any battery-dependent equipment would "mysteriously" shut off. Took me a while to realize I'd never turned on the generators.

I provide all this detail due to the new problem. I have the jets the same way. I get in, power up the engines, switch on the Avionics and start flying. However, when I kick on the ATC and set Auto Throttle on and have my Nav and IAS selected (in addition to HDG and ALT or GPS nav) everything works great for a while and then suddenly the plane goes haywire and starts to literally fall out of the sky. All I notice is that the engines have entirely shut down. I have to quickly fight the plane into a glide, turn off all autopilot control and then manually re-set everything to get full control again. This happens twice during every flight. Once during ascent and worse during landing. Great time for both. Does anyone have ANY idea what might cause this or what I might be overlooking during start-up?

[lsdunch]

Are you following the checklists on the kneeboard, or downloaded ones? You shouldn't really be having problems like this with the default aircraft and panel.

[artburke]

What kind of program are you using to turn everything off? And, why are you using such a program?

Open the sim. Place your plane where you want it. Manually turn everything off - fuel flow, battery, generator, etc. Set the parking brake on and then hit the ";" key - save the situation (i.e., save the flight). Everytime you want to fly that plane from that location, call up that "flight" and it will "wake up" with everything turned off. Then, following appropriate checklists, fire everything up and go flying.

Is it possible this "program" you refer to is causing you grief?

Saving your flights this way has an added bonus. Are you unhappy with the size of your GPS for example? Before you save the flight, size your GPS (simply by dragging the edges) to a comfortable viewing size. Then turn everything off and save the flight. When you recall the flight, your location, the plane settings AND that oversized GPS window will all return exactly as you had specified.

Hope this helps at least a little.
Art

[faosfx]

If he is using auto throttle for take off he is definately not following any checklists.....auto throttle is DENIED for take off...use pitch to control airspeed and you will find you get a quicker climb to 10k ... you should use auto throttle in cruise if needed, during descent and to maintain airspeed when planning to stay at a specific FL bellow 10k.

[lsdunch]

Umm, FAO - Autothrottle + TO/GA seems pretty standard to me for takeoff roll?

[Agrajag]

>What kind of program are you using to turn everything off?
>And, why are you using such a program?

Art,

I don't use any sort of program. You just have to change some settings in the fltsim.flt file which determines, among other things, the start up parameters of the game. You can get this file from any of the sites as bc_dark.zip.

The reason I use it is that I personally prefer to start with everything off which is one of the things I LOVED about the Flight Unlimited series. The drawback to this is that it then requires a bit of investigation to fly new aircraft.

>Open the sim. Place your plane where you want it. Manually
>turn everything off - fuel flow, battery, generator, etc.
>Set the parking brake on and then hit the ";" key - save the
>situation (i.e., save the flight). Everytime you want to fly

This is NOT a solution that works for me and many others. Why? Because along with everything that you set, Microsoft decided to also save some things along the way that you may not want saved. For example, doing this also saves the state of the AI world. Thus, EVERY time I start, the SAME EXACT planes will be flying the SAME EXACT routes and be in the SAME EXACT position, etc. <grin> With my solution (and many people use BC_DARK quite happily and without incident) these items are not "saved" they are off from the start. Your solution just loads a saved game where they happen to be off at that point. It isn't the same thing.

Every time I load the AI aircraft are as they should be. In other words, it's based on the time of day and such so I get a different flavor each time.

>Is it possible this "program" you refer to is causing you
>grief?

Only in a sense that I'm not aware of something I need to be aware of. Like I said, in my KingAir, I missed the part about needing to turn on the generators and that caused "trouble" but it was desired trouble. I should have known to do that.

With this case I have gone to the kneeboard but the information there is a bit cryptic for this plane compared to the props I've flown. It refers to buttons and such that I can't even find.