At roughly 100 pounds under MTOW I was able to lift the 727-100 off the ground at LAX 25R ON A SINGLE ENGINE...  The 727 struggles, at best, to even maintain altitude on a single engine (its mostly a glider at that point), yet I am able to lift off?  Not only that, but with the same load with 3 engines I can climb at nearly 8500 fpm...  Am I missing something here?  When did the 727-100 become a rocket ship?  The engine models need to be retuned significantly, you are outclimbing 757's and MD80s...  Then we have reverse thrust..  I am able to powerback at 20+ knots, thats insane.

Aside from that, is there any news on when we can expect an update to fix the VSI?  Flying is impossible without an accurate VSI.  In fact, the failure of a static VSI warrents an emergency and immediately return to the nearest supportable airfield.  How can I come in on an 800fpm decent when a 1000fpm decent (according to the VSI) is over 7000fpm in reality?  How do I hold a steady 2000fpm climbout when the VSI needle is hardly budged?  

EDIT:  The airspeed indicator isn't working either.  Pressing Ctrl+Z in FSX gives an entirely different readout than what shows up on the ASI.

Hi Phil,

You must have a really long runway on your single-engine test, and must be pushing beyond 100% N1/N2. :)

I tested the single-engine take-off when I first got the model, and did not have enough runway to get to V1, but if I'd had double length runway I think I would have been able to get to VR, but would not have been able to maintain V2.

How are you determining 8500 fpm climb out?  The 727 is able to climb very steep angles and very quickly IRL... but maybe not that kind of performance. :D

The reverse thrust does seem a bit too much, I am able to come to a stop in maybe 100 ft with 3x reversers alone... but I've never flown the real thing except as a passenger, so I'm not sure.  I do remember the reverser engaged will throw you forward as a passenger.

The VSI is included in the next SP, per what CS has told me in my tickets.  Flying is not impossible without a VSI.  Take a Cub up for a spin. :)

I have successfully flown 10+ hops in my 727-100 with the VSI fault.  It's simply this... if it takes 1 minute to climb/descent 1000 ft on the altimeter, you are going at a rate of 1000 fpm.  If it takes 30 seconds, then it's 2000 fpm.  if it takes 15 seconds, a rate of 4000 fpm.  Anything faster than that, and you are exceeding good sense for the aircraft.

As I fly with FSPassengers-X, they will yell at me and I will get bad points if I exceed about 5000 fpm.  Thus far, this only happened on one unrecorded flight, when I was verifying the behavior of the VSI.

So yeah, to answer your question about holding a steady 2000 fpm climbout, set your chronograph and count how many seconds it takes to go 1000 ft.  If it's 30, then you're doing exactly 2000 fpm. :)

Perhaps you're right that a failure of VSI would warrant an emergency and immediate alternate landing... but then again, when this happens, pilots must use the method I described above to determine their climb/descent rates when doing so.

A good lot of things are being fixed in the next SP, which would be available fairly soon.

And one should qualify your "legally" statement, as there are many types of aircraft which do not include a VSI at all. :)

Also, I've not seen the issue you report about the ASI...  my ASI agrees within a few knots of what the raw data display shows.  True to life, the ASI is not 100% accurate... this is called realism. :)

As far as certain small aircraft not having a VSI, we aren't flying a cub, this is a 727.  You tell me what American Airlines would have done say 20 years ago if the VSI went out?  Let me qualify that "legally" statement as per carrier.  No carrier would let a jet go off the ground if there was a static system failure.  The whole point of the VSI is so that I am not having to calculate the decent rate in my head, its like having to manually calculate my airspeed--although a bit more critical, still you get the point.  I understand in an emergency how to calculate decent rates, but unless you declare an emergency wheels up every time you fly, you should have a working VSI.  

Also, my ASI is off by as much as 10 knots on takeoff.  V2+10 gets a little interesting if the ASI is off by 10 knots.  If this is true to the 727 in RL, thats one scary bird!

As for FS Passengers screaming over 5000fpm, the MD-82 is capable of reutinely climbing out at 6000fpm, so that seems a bit odd?

However, if CS would simply address these few issues, the 727 could take a leap from aweful to pretty darn good.  I just dont feel like I'm flying a 727 if I can climb like a rocket ship--I need the white-knuckle takeoffs!  You dont pay $80 for something that doesnt work, and that is my problem with CS at the moment.  I paid a huge premium for this aircraft and A) it doesnt have anything close to true to life performance, and B) basic instruments in the cockpit dont work.  Its crazy, if CS had perhaps waited just a few more weeks and fixed the bugs before release, I would have gone from my current unsatisfied state to being a happy customer--yet here we are.

phil, I certainly see your point of view... don't mistake that...

Can you confirm that something is wrong with the VSI's static source?  Obviously the all three altimeters still function, and I'd think at least the standby gauge would use a different static source than the primaries left and right, but I would also assume that the VSIs would be tied to separate static sources as well, so that if one failed due to a static air issue the other would still function.  But I'm no expert on the subject.

If I recall, FSP is more concerned about descent rates than climb rates, but again I don't know if it alters its passengers perceptions based on type of aircraft.  This isn't the place really to talk about FSP's perceptions of my flying though... I just included it as an example to state my point that I am able to get up and get down without crossing it's threshold of what the virtual passengers consider unsafe.

CS *is* addressing the issue, at least it's been confirmed for the VSI, and I know the EPR issue has been reported as well, so I'd assume thrust to be addressed with EPR.  While I share your assessment that the engines are overpowered (based entirely on subjective information on my end) I do have to note that I find it impossible in many cases to maintain a climb speed much in excess of 260 knots unless I pin the throttles to the limit, which would surely cause the engines to detonate in real life.  I tend to never go much over 90% N1, which may or may not be accurate for these engines, but I never push them even to the yellow band, or let the EGT rise to the threshold.

I'll tell you something that I mentioned in another thread... not long ago I paid a premium for a brand new operating system from microsoft... and it was not usable for some days/weeks/etc after purchase because I either had to download updates immediately from microsoft, wait for microsoft to write patches, and/or wait for hardware vendors to get on the ball and release their updates.  

Yes, I was upset about that, and yes I'm a little upset that I paid good money for a plane that should have had these issues resolved before release.   But no software is perfect on release day, and if it is, that's an extreme rarity.  Our SP to fix the issues which have been reported will be available soon, and CS are working on it.

I'm not associated with CS in any way other than as a customer, and I use the same channels to communicate with them as we all do, and they've assured me the SP will be available soon, and it addresses quite a few (if not all) of the issues that everyone has reported to them.

So, until that time, I'm choosing not to be mad about it, and enjoying the plane as it is today.  It's still far better and more enjoyable to fly than the old FS9 converted to FSX freeware 727's I've used for years.  

Oh, well as far as it *actually* being a static issue, I have no idea really, but if I was a pilot and the VSI went haywire, I would assume it would be that.  Thats just my interpretation of what this would mean in RL.  As I said before, this plane has a lot of potential, it just desperately needs some reworking as I am not flying a 727, just a super 80 in a 727 livery sans VSI.

As long as CS releases the patch soon, that should be fine, but I get a little synical when it comes to the word "soon" because I've been burned by several developers in the past.  So I guess im taking a lot of baggage into this relationship.  Oh yeah... that and CS didnt exactly prove themselves with their last release (a certain block F).  I dont think I need to say much else.

As have I, friend.  But also being from an IT/Development background myself, I also understand that sometime the biggest irritating factors are indeed the easiest to fix... but they must wait for a greater release because of testing or other issues which may or may not be a factor with that smaller issue.  So I really think this is a good thing, to have one big patch than having to install 1000 small patches, which if installed in the wrong order (or if one is skipped) could cause a major nightmare for the end user (and for CS support!)

For the record, the VSI on the 727 doesn't read direct from the static ports, like it would in a light aircraft.  It does read from the static system, but according to the systems manual also:


Quote:

These instruments differ from a conventional vertical speed instrument by the addition of two accelerometers which generate pressure differences whenever there is a change in the normal acceleration of the airplane.

I think the issue is not necessarily in the static reading, but in the code that emulates those accelerometers.  My suspicion is that the code is accidentally working against the static air, and not with it, but I don't have the code to compare, and really don't care to violate the "reverse engineering" clause of every license agreement in existence to find out. :)

It will come.  They're under serious pressure from users like us to make it happen.  Just sit tight and make believe that you have less thrust than you do and that your VSI works.  The rest of the plane is still quite accurate in most regards.  8-)

Well right, I didnt suspect the "static system" itself was busted, I was just make believing that if I sat in a cockpit and saw the VSI messed up, thats what my immediate thought would be ;).  As for one big patch over several, yes, that is better (case in point, Falcon 4.0 and the "Falcon Dance").  And true the rest of the aircraft seems to be pretty accurate.  I just wish they wouldn't have cut corners in the first place.  No one has a 727 for fsx except for CS, so there shouldn't be much pressure to crank one out.  One other company is working to port their FS9 product over, but I doubt it will surface any time soon--not soon enough to compete with CS anyway.  Thats just my two cents.  It will be pretty nice though when the patch comes out for sure.