Dear Captainsim

Can you please tell me why my support ticket #8510 was cancelled.

The KB# in the email that was sent to me was #1063, a generic KB explaining reasons why this may happen.

I beleve that i have identified a valid issue with the 737 flight director in that it does not respond to any lateral deviation other than the HDG bug regardless of selected mode.

As a paying customer of the 737 and many other CS products a technical answer would have been appriciated.

Kind regards
A S Martin

Thanks CoolP for your reply.

My issue with the FD is that the lateral bar only reponds to the heading bug for steering you left or right. If selected to VOR/LOC the lateral bar will not steer to intercept the VOR radial, It still appears to follow the heading bug in this mode.

It would also be adventageous if you could follow the lateral FD bar for the GPS route. Another point to note is that the HSI deviation bar does not respond when in GPS mode.

I understand that the sperry SP-77 is the autopilot that is modeled, and i also understand that the FD is totally independant of the autopilot, i believe it was the FD-108/109 that the -100/200 was fitted with. However I was only an apprentice when i last worked on the old classic 737!.......I am a real world licenced avionics engineer.

I know how flight directors work,  but apparently captainsim doubt that fact as i have received an email telling me to read the manual and the forum for information on how to operate the FD....which despite my real world profession i have read, in depth.

Perhaps it is somthing i am doing wrong in operating the simulator, but i expected better from CS than having my ticket abruptly deleted without explination.

Best regards
Stuart

Stuart, the FD issue is a long standing one in CS I fear. Same problem but not quite as bad with the 727, LOU had a good post on his experience on the FD for the real v the CS 727 in the 727 forum pages that is well worth reading up.

I overcome this flaw by basically looking up Boeing data for the type and working out the appropriate pitch angle in degrees for particular flight regimes, and then putting this data on a card and put the card nearby when simming (I actually do this for all the aeroplanes I have and have always done this for real aeroplanes all my flying life, that is learn what pitch attitude and power setting produces what). While the FD should show this it does not, in my model of the 737 the FD is toppled all the time and despite a reload and repair still is the same, so I just ignore using the FD and don't turn it on (Same on the 727 more of a hindrance than a help).

A good set of pilot notes should give you the respective pitch angles and power settings (attitude +power = performance) I am still working these out and looking for this information on the web, once I get it together happy to post it here on the forum but at the moment it is still a WIP.

I guess it may be useful to collect all the known bugs in one topic and discuss (verify) them. Then send the report as a ticket, referring to the thread and therefore confirmations. What do you think?

In my eyes, she is a great ship, but there are certain parts (PDCS, FD, pressurization, etc.) which need a second look or a fix in the general meaning. There is no doubt that this 1.0 release was better than any other 1.0 before, but I would love to see 1.1 being even better.

As for the FD itself, it's of course no fun to see people avoiding the actual usage just because of the unreliable nature of it. Same for the PDCS and the connected CTDs, to give some examples.

Stuart, yeah it would be nice to be able to switch over to GPS instead of VOR as you suggest but this era of aeroplane was built before GPS use became widespread and integrated into the avionics suite of the aeroplane. Used to trundle around in a BAE 146 which had the same sort of analogue cockpit with two gps units of different types in the centre console, one a King and one a Garmin (go figure how that came about). We just used the heading bug to keep on track with the GPS and primary indication on the HSI was still VOR. At least the FD worked and was connected to the altitude control so it would set climb or descent accordingly on the FD.

LOU says that the FD in the real 727 that it was pretty good but alas in the CS this interconnectivity and pitch and roll command is lacking somewhat.

These pre computerised aircraft are always a bit of a mish mash, some auto functions some manual and some in between. At the time having an AP that was even a true 3 axis AP was a rarity and most only had roll and pitch and pretty rudimentary at that.

Flying this type of aeroplane in a sim alone is hard work if you do it by the book as you have no co-pilot to do the work of changing stuff about as you flew the beasty. If you have a look at the manual for checks etc you will see what I mean by the way the scan and tasks were divided up between pilot flying (PF) and pilot not flying (PNF) and the very layout of the cockpit meant there was stuff only the captain could do and stuff only the co-pilot could do.

I do like the EPR computer system and the VREF guage both are pretty neat and sure save a lot of time looking up tables etc.

I am starting to warm to this bird, love the short field capacity for a 100 seater, pretty stable to fly and once you get used to the antiquated style systems not bad at all, certainly goes a lot better than the 727 and not as complex as the 707 (especially the fuel system).

I think the CS737 is pretty neat actually and a run YMAV-YSCB last night in severe turbulence and then hand flying it down on the ILS merely confirmed that view.