About the only thing I have done with the Doppler Navigation, so far, is turn it on. I did load the 707dpl.PLN with Flight Sim Flight Planner last night and then fly it, but it just shows up as a direct GPS flight from KSEA to KSFF.

Mark

Edit (20.08.2010 at 11:29:00): Tim. I read the info on the Doppler in the manual and other than turning it on, NOTHING. Can you give me a small tutorial on what you did? Please? I would love to see how this works. Thanks.

Tim Capps wrote on Aug 20^th, 2010 at 1:37am:

Hi Tim.

By "707 demo flight", do you mean 707-300 Cold-n-Dark (KSEA) or 707-300 Cleared for takeoff (KSEA)? I just need to be sure we are on the same playing field here.

Mark

You are doing better than me. I can't even get the Doppler to see a flight plan.

I'm going to be a real PAIN and ask for exactly what you did. I'm definitely doing something wrong or missing something completely. Also. Was the plan it did do the 707dpl.pln (KSEA-KSFF)?

Thanks in advance.

Mark <- is really sruck on this one!

Thanks very much for that Tim.

From what you have said, the main difference seems to be a case of "Load the flight plan AFTER turning the Doppler Nav ON". I'm off to give it a try. I'll report back with the results. Thanks again.

Mark

Hi Sanal.

Thanks for that. I can see I really need to study the manual. I am a complete dummy with this. It's all new to me.

Mark

asanal wrote on Aug 22^nd, 2010 at 7:25pm:


I don't believe the original equipment had that capability. My understanding is that you could set heading to fly and number of track miles on the next leg of the flight plan on one unit while the other was following the current leg. Switchover would occur either automatically or manually, depending on configurations, and you would then program the next leg, and so on.

Heya all

After reading some of the comments here I decided to run a little experiment : Load a flight plan from Boston Logan to Atlanta Hartsfield, take off, and turn on doppler nav right after retracting flaps to see what would happen.

Here's what my little tests taught me about doppler nav :

In order for it to work, you'll need to :
- Turn doppler on from the O/H panel
- Select 'MAN' mode on the Doppler control panel on the central stand
- THEN load the FS flight plan
- Turn AP on on 'NAV' mode

Then the doppler will follow the flight plan and automatically switch waypoints, using whatever channel (A or B) was selected when you loaded the flight plan.
The 'selected course' box will then remain blank or not change (default 000 or whatever you entered) and only 'miles to go' will begin to count down.

Rather than turn to the heading corresponding to the active waypoint on the flightplan, stabilise its turn and fly straight forward, as it would happen with the HDG selector, the plane will stick to the flightplan exactly as it is displayed on the world map.
This means if the plane turns too slow and overshoots the active leg, it will not just fly parallel to it on the same heading (again, like it would happen with HDG mode), but it will apply corrections and automatically fall back on the planned course.

But you can also select 'virtual' waypoint manually as you go, as in 'fly this vector for this long'. In order to do this, you need to select your choosen course and the length of the leg on the dopller control panel on the central stand. If you were following the flightplan on the A channel, use the B channel, and then switch.
When you do this, the new selected leg will override the flightplan on the world map screen now only showing the new leg you just entered (heading and length)
In this case too, the doppler will make automatic corrections and fall back on the active leg if it overshoots it.

Switching between channels A and B works just like switching between NAV radios, allowing you to fly to one waypoint while the next one is already set up and ready to be activated.

10 Nm before a waypoint is reached, a red warning light will show on the panel, indicating it's time to switch waypoints.
No need to touch anything if you are still flying the FS flightplan, but if you are entering waypoint manually, this is when you need to switch the current active channel on the doppler panel.
At standard AP bank angle, this should allow a nice turn between legs without overshooting.

If no next waypoint is entered, the plane will just fly around in circles once 'miles to go' has counted down to 0.

I'm not too sure wether this accurately represents the way doppler nav systems are supposed to work, but it can certainly come in handy in some situations.
I was expecting the system to be dumb and just blindly follow the data entered, meaning if I turned doppler nav on at a different starting point than specified in the flightplan, it would just follow an offset route. Well, it does not.

I like to think this was intended to simplify navigation and simulate other crewmembers making adjustments to decrease the pilot's (your) workload during some phases of the flight. After all the 707 is supposed to be flown by a 3 members crew... 

Hope this helps.

Cheers

Nico

Tim,
Here is, how I program the DN and I do not need to switch A to B . DN will make the switch according FS Flight plan and will take me to destination.

1-Turn "ON" DN at O/H panel
2-Turn DN "Auto" mode on the Central stand
3-Load the FS Flight PLan
4-First Leg mileage will appear in "A" DN unit
5-After Takeoff turn toward  first leg course intercept
6-A/P engage / NAV mode "ON"

Airplane will intercept to course. Watch the DN Needle. That is all I do.DN will followup FS Plan until to final destination .

Sanal

Does the Doppler-Navigation System also work without a loaded FS-flightplan?

Tried it yesterday, but it went horribly wrong... 

There is an issue with doppler, fix is already available. Please check-in to Your Profile, click Product name link and use Customer Support > Search KB > KB# 5953. We are sorry for inconvenience.

Currently we are working on Doppler tutorial, please stand by.

It is a known bug that FSX will route you from New York to London via the scenic western Canadian detour.  Co Pilot from Abacus will create a correct route, and so will FS Build.  But for default FSX planning, I use your method of creating a GPS route, then dragging the line to the waypoints.  It is tedious, but can result in a more realistic flight plan.  I put in a lot more than a couple, though.

Thanks a lot, sir.

pavel

Tim Capps wrote on Aug 26^th, 2010 at 5:12pm:


When doing a transcontinental flight i usually will look at Vataware,
you can look for flights that have been flown there and it give you
a route.  There is also 'vroute'.

Once I have a route string, I'll use FSBuild to actually generate
the flight plan. Still requires manual inspection for any errors
but  I'm fairly happy with the results.

Tim,
Did you load Flight Plan first and turn DN "On" and Main/Auto second?

You have to turn DN "ON" and Main/Auto first, then you should load the Fs Flight Plan second.

That is how I am doing and working perfect
Sanal

You have to load flight plan or it will not work. DN doesn't create a  flight plan .

Nyxx wrote on Aug 27^th, 2010 at 9:06am:


In theory, you would have leg one on A, leg two on B.  Then while you're on B, you would enter leg three on A.  And yes, you can use airways and intersections because doppler navigation is completely independent of radio aids.  You can also just load the flight plan and have the airplane follow it without further messing with the doppler navigation system, which is the only way I can get it to work so far.

Tim and all, please make sure you have applied the fix in the KB#5953.

[/quote]

I did, and set the controls on the DNS. �I was able to see the route on the map like I'm supposed to. �A is my active route in red, and B is in white. �But when I turn it to man or auto, the "miles to go" value changes and I no longer have a route on the map. �So it is starting out fine, but then something is interfering and preventing me from using it manually.

[/quote]

I experimented today with this. Everytime I switched from A to B it dumped the flight plan. I reloaded the FP and just let it follow it without any further switching, it worked as it should.

Att: Captain Sim,
I spent couple of hours to identify the problem with K#5953. Finally I found it. Every time I rename the 5953 "dpl.pln", it is transferring a flight plan to FS as:  KSEA (34R) to KSFF. Therefore  DNS  doest work.

Captain Sim will you please  check the contains of "dpl.pln" file. I also tried as 707dpl.pln, same results.
Sanal

I tried a New York to LA flight pland just loaded automatically, and it turned my multi-legged plan into a single leg (which then extended to Hawaii!).

EDIT: This time automatic flight is behaving properly.  (Still no joy with manual, though).

I re-change the name, but problem continued. I found "dpl.pln went to FS flight plan list. You have to delete from there also.

I am glad we are all very interested in Cs707 and other Cs products. Therefore we are watching closely to identify the problems and bring to CS attention. When all problems are eliminated 707 will fly high. DTS was the navigation backbone in late 1960. It is good we can turn time back and feel those days and how sophisticated airplanes  crossed the oceans.

I created a ticket.  Passed along to our developers for further consideration.  I bet they get this fixed.

TheFinn wrote on Aug 30^th, 2010 at 7:59pm:

Didn't Captain Sim say they were going to do that as a bonus for us in this Topic? Or did I misread his post?

Mark

TheFinn wrote on Aug 31^st, 2010 at 8:23am:

No worries. I just read it how it was written.

I can always get it to follow A, like you, but it always seems to point B at about 180^o from what I have it set at. Because of this, I have never entered more than two sections of a flight plan. It just so much easier to create an FS Flight Plan for it to follow.

Mark

The dpl.pln file is just an internal service file requred for DNS operations in FSX environment.

It's time to clear the DNS concept.
The DNS has been developed as authentic as possible, therefore:

- It is not designed to load any flight plans.

- Using of the DNS control panel is the only way to create valid DNS route.

- Please note DNS route limits are the following:
- AUTO mode - 2 segments (legs)
- MAN mode - 1 segment leg �

We are sorry for the cofussion, the info has been missed from the manuals (to be added in 1.1).

Captain Sim wrote on Sep 6^th, 2010 at 11:00pm:

Hi Tim.

I just tried it the way described in the DNS instructions according to the CS KB#5968 and the above quote by Captain Sim and it's working. I can see the two legs of my flight plan! And it is following the plan too. �

Mark

EDIT: The link was showing the wrong image. So I update this post on Sep 8^th, 2010 at 4:46am. Sorry.

So when you guys set up and switch to A for your first leg, it doesn't reset the miles? �I can't imagine what I'm doing wrong -- after all, the instructions are pretty simple. �Maybe you could provide a step by step?

EDIT: Never mind. �According to the tutorial, something is going wrong when I switch to A. �Instead of showing the route, the miles just reset and I get nothing. �I don't think this is operator error.  I'm glad it's working for others, though.

Quote:


Doesn't make any difference for me. �I put it on standby or off and the selector switch in neutral to set up my legs. �Then I turn it to auto. �Then I turn the selector switch to A. �It resets miles to some number; last time it was 23 instead of 13. �I never see the red line on the Shift+4 map. �I am not loading a flight plan if that makes any difference and this is on the ground during preflight. �I just tried it again. �No joy.

If some of the most knowledgable and dedicated (or at least diligent) people are having problems I don't think clearer instructions are going to help. �There are only so many ways you can do these steps and I've tried them all, I think, to no avail.

EDIT: It does seem to make a difference whether you are on the ground or in the air.  In the air I was at least able to get the red line and have it intercept.  But no luck switching back and forth in manual mode.  And the miles are still resetting and the line disappearing whenever I make a change.  I still say it isn't working right.

Why make this so complicated? I just make sure the Doppler is ON, load a flight plan, take off, engage the AP and set it to NAV, done deal!

JayG wrote on Sep 7^th, 2010 at 5:28pm:

The quick answer is: Because I really want to fly a Doppler Navigation flight that I entered the details myself. I know we can do a FS Flight Planner flight but it just isn't the same.

And I'm not implying that there is anything wrong with doing it that way either.

Mark

Hi Nico.

If you look at the image of the Map I posted here, you will see that the flight plan for Stage A and Stage B are perfect. It work beautifully on that flight. Unfortunately, I have not been able to repeat that flight, nor any other two Stage flight. I can't, for the life of me, figure out what I did right then, that I am doing wrong now. I have tried all sorts of different methods, but to no avail. Stage B always goes wrong and sometimes Stage A changes the distance and heading when I turn it all on.

I have submitted a Ticket and it has been passed on to the development team.

Mark

Thanks Captain Sim. I look forward to the fix.

Mark

Quote:


At the risk of repeating myself : I knew it

Quote:


Thanks CS. A working DNS will be a fine addition to a fantastic package.

Now I'm even more anxious to get my hands on 1.1

Cheers

Nico

Great news CS! Looking forward to the 1.1 update! 

I know this is an old topic, but can anybody confirm what I'm seeing with the CS 707 Doppler System?

If I save a flight and re-load, the Doppler settings for legs A & B are lost. Is there any work-around to avoid this?

peter