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DC-8 problems

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jdetrick View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote jdetrick Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Topic: DC-8 problems
    Posted: 01 Nov 2013 at 1:13am
I want to preface this by saying that I like this product. It just needs more work.  I also want to state that I have a lot of knowledge on this subject as I flew them for 20 years.  Both as a Professional Flight Engineer and a First Officer.  I also worked as a mechanic on them for 5 years.  These are all problems that should have been caught by beta testers.   So here goes, it's long list.

Initial Observations on the DC-8


Enginners Panel:


  1. There is an apu position on the volt/freq selector. Very few DC-8's had an apu installed.

  2. Hydraulic system selector lever should normally be in the middle position. The lower position is an emergency position. This lever should be left in the middle position for normal ops.

  3. Cabin pressure control is shown in the manual locked position. The knob should be rotated

    90 degrees and colored yellow.

  4. Fuel temp selector- Usually there is no selector, fuel temp is read from the number 4 main tank only.

  5. The N1 and N2 gauges are reversed. Normally N1 is on the engine indicating panel up front. Howeverer, I have seen one airplane with the N1, N2 gauges in this configuration. It was originally ordered by Swissair.

  6. Ground cooling/bloway jet switch is labelled but not installed.

  7. Your fuel panel setup for the engine start is really incorrect. Engines were never started feeding from the center main tank. When you think about it, a lot of flights were done with no fuel in the center tank. The normal start configuration was all crossfeed levers up, the fuel selector levers (white levers) feeding the engines from their respective main tank. All main boost pumps on. After each engine was started, it's boost pump was shut off to check the engine driven fuel pump pressure. A negative pressure indicated a failure. The boost pumps were turned back on during the before takeoff checklist.

  8. The Aileron and Rudder manual reversion lights should come on when the hydraulic power levers are placed in the down position. These levers are normally down when the aircraft is shutdown. They shutoff the hydraulic fluid to the aileron and rudder power packs when you have a hydraulic leak. They are placed on during the after start checklist.

  9. Cabin VSI indicates a climb of 1500 fpm all the time.

  10. The hydraulic aux pump should read 2800 to 3000 psi, not 1600 psi.

  11. When the engine hydraulic bypass switches are placed in bypass, the only thing that should go down is the hydraulic pressure.

  12. No sounds for the turbo compressors or recirculation fans. You really hear them when you

    put them on.

  13. No bell with the fire warning test.


Overhead:


    1. The fire shutoff switch cover should have a white dot about halfway up from verbage to the beginning of its travel. This indicates at what position the generator field trips.

    2. The standby magnetic compass is normally mounted in the ceiling behind the captains seat. The pilots normally viewed it using a mirror in front of each position. The navigator could look up to his right and view it. The pilots usually adjusted these during their preflight and then folded them down.

    3. The engine anti ice lights were normally out. They were disagreement lights. If the valve position disagreed with the switch position, they came on. When the switch was placed either open or closed the light would flicker briefly for 1 or 2 seconds.


Main Instrument panels:


  1. Standby airspeed indicator. Never saw one. It wasn't needed because the DC-8 had two independent pitot static systems.

  2. #1 VOR omnirange indicator should not be there. #1 Vor is indicated on the captains HSI and the #2 VOR is indicated on the FO's HSI.

  3. The RMI should read both VOR and ADF selectable by a pair of two position switches located on the bottom of the RMI. These were called the suicide switches.

  4. Standby attitude indicator not installed until the 1970's.

  5. The airspeed indicator is too modern. The digital readouts did not come along until the 2000's when aircraft were made RVSM compliant by replacing the air data system.

    The maximum airspeed pointer was not hooked to the autothrottle. It was used as a ref bug for threshold speed (Vth) and V2+10. It should be orange/red.

  6. Autothrottle-No autothrottles were installed on the early aircraft. They weren't installed until the 60 series. And then were not used much. It was found that they didn't work well and were disconnected.

  7. The altimeter with a digital readout wasn't used until the aircraft were made RVSM compliant. In any case your altimeter does not indicate the altitude correctly.

  8. Altitude Selector/Alerter (In the center top part of the glareshield.) Should not follow the

    altitude. The pilot not flying selects the altitude that they are cleared to. At 800 ft below the target altitude an aural alert is sounded and an amber light is illuminated. Once leveled

    off, if the aircraft deviates +- 200 ft from the altitude indicated in the selector window, the warnings occur. The same thing happens in reverse when descending. 800 ft above the selected altitude the warnings come on.

  9. Slot light. No slot light installed. An amber light, usually on the FO's panel that illuminates

    when the flaps extend past 7 degrees and the slots are not open. It will also come on when the flaps retract past two degrees and the slots are not closed. When flaps are extend or retracted it normally comes on for one or two seconds as everything cycles.

  10. Flap position indicator has two pointers.

  11. The autopilot warning lights and position indicators are normally on the captains side. The aircraft only has one set installed. They can be on the FO's side, but then they wouldn't be on the captains side.

  12. Auto pilot servo switches are normally on the captains side only, if they are installed. Not every aircraft had them.

  13. PTC indicator is on the FO's yoke only.

  14. Parking brake animation is backwards. To set the parking brake, you pull up.

  15. Hydraulic brake pressure gauge should read a max of 3000 psi.

  16. The full flaps placard should not be there on the early aircraft. Flaps 50 was a normal landing flap position. Flaps 35 became the normal landing position when the hushkits were installed and the aircraft had to be stage 3 noise compliant. By landing at flaps 35 versus flaps 50 it lowered the power setting required and hence the noise. In fact when I flew the 61,62 and 63 aircraft we quite often had an "emergency" landing. Flaps 50 is still the normal landing flaps for the 70 series as they have cfm-56 turbofans installed and are stage 3 compliant.

  17. The autopilot turn knob should not be hooked to the heading bug. If you were flying along in heading select and wanted to turn the aircraft for a deviation of some sort, you rotate the turn knob out of it's center detente in the direction you wished to turn. The autopilot would snap out of heading select.

  18. The vertical speed wheel function is incorrect. The white index mark should be the zero fpm rate of climb position. When there, it is also the altitude hold switch. There is no separate altitude hold switch. When flying the aircraft on autopilot, the pilot places a fingertip on the VS wheel and keeps it there while rotating it towards the rear to climb, and forward to descend. When approaching your target altitude you would slowly reduce the rate of climb to zero. At that point you could feel the feel settle into its altitude hold detent.

    Those aircraft that did have a separate altitude hold switch, it was a flight director function.

  19. The flight director does not work properly. The switch should definitely have separate detentes for each position. The FI position will follow the heading bug. The other functions will follow the nav sources.

I think that if these are corrected a good product will turn into a classic outstanding project.


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Paul Golding View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Paul Golding Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 01 Nov 2013 at 9:54am
Hi John, I hope you're well?
......also,
1. Should caging the standby ADI, cage the main ADI too, or should their respective cage knobs only cage the ADI they're attached to?
 
2. On the few (2) flights I did last night, I saw the brake hydraulic pressure indicator needle pass through the yellow, green and red bands before settling past the red.
 
3. At full flaps, the flap position indicator needle passes the full flaps label and stops at the 8 o'clock position.
 
I think John has probably mentioned everything else I noted, aside from a few more aesthetic observations.
 
a. The steering main bogey seems to be either in-line or turned; I couldn't see it gradually move from in-line as the rate or turn was increased.
 
b. VC camera position/views.  These are a real issue for me with most add-ons, and the DC-8 is no exception.  It's like they were set up with zero consideration for the end user i.e. just how far away is the eyepoint set for both the pedestal and the engineers panels?  here's no way these can be used, let alone read without adjustment.  And the overhead isn't much better.
 
c. VC pilots eyepoint.  I haven't yet figured out what the issue is here and will spend more time looking at the extensive collection of photos I've taken (and had taken) in both a 50 series and the 60 series simulator.  But it seemed to me that the top of the left pillar was only inches from my left eye and yet I didn't need to make much effort to glance down at the instruments.  Last night I settled for moving the eyepoint backwards a few steps and reducing the zoom from the correct 1.0 to 0.9 and whilst this was very useable, it placed the left pillar where it just wouldn't be.
 
d. VC sounds are in short supply, not just the fans etc that John mentioned, but switch clicks, gear rumble.....stuff that adds atmosphere.
 
e. As noted in another thread, the DC-8 loads with engines off, regardless of any saved flight setting (I'll admit to not reading the config tools though, so maybe there's something in there).
 
Like John said above, this could develop in to a very nice product with a little TLC.
 
Cheers.
 
Paul
 
P.S. John, when did Douglas introduce that nasty trim horn?  I was expecting to hear it.
 
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jdetrick View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote jdetrick Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 01 Nov 2013 at 11:17am
Paul, nice to hear from you.  I forgot about the stab trim aural warning.  I think it's always been there. How I forget such an annoying sound?   I have to correct a couple of my observations.  The normal N2 position was up front, with N1 being on the engineers panel.    The inner bug on the airspeed indicator is set at V2 for takeoff.  The normal profile has you holding V2+10 till 1000ft AGL.  The 3 engine takeoff has you holding V2 till 1000ft AGL.   I'm sorry for the inaccurate info.  The last time I flew the 8 was two years ago and I have since transitioned to the B767.  You tend to dump a lot of info when you move to another aircraft.  Especially two that are so different.   I may get together some of my info for the profiles for flying this thing and post them.  This thing is flown much differently than a modern jet.    The main ADI did not have a caging function.  At least not the later variants with a Sperry ADI.  The standby was caged on shutdown and uncaged during the captains preflight.
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flyforever View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote flyforever Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 01 Nov 2013 at 11:32am
Another point of annoyance is the absence of 2d windows( gps notwithstanding). When flying in IFR conditions, especially on low approaches, and using the autopilot, it's tough not having the autopilot controls easily accessible. I've tried using FSPanel studio to create a 2d autopilot window, but I am not having any luck. I'd like someone to tell me if they succeeded in creating a 2 d window for the autopilot.

Also, at times it appears that the panels has difficulty going through a screen refresh, thus creating a slight lag.
tc
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Paul Golding View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Paul Golding Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 01 Nov 2013 at 11:32am
And you John; I've still got all the info and photos from the long forgotten DF DC-8 project.  It's going to be interesting to see how these may get used to re-texture some of this DC-8 Wink
 
As for the stall horn, adjusting the trim was the first thing I did when the DC-8 loaded LOL!!!  I did some reading last night to see if was a feature added to later variants only, but couldn't see anything.  I assumed it was in all models.
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flyforever View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote flyforever Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 01 Nov 2013 at 11:34am
I failed to mention that the acceleration of the aircraft during takeoff feels great. In fact, it's one of the few planes that provide that "heavy load" inertia upon setting full throttles. The gauges are easy to read for some great flying...
tc
FV
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Paul Golding View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Paul Golding Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 01 Nov 2013 at 11:37am
Originally posted by flyforever flyforever wrote:

Another point of annoyance is the absence of 2d windows( gps notwithstanding). When flying in IFR conditions, especially on low approaches, and using the autopilot, it's tough not having the autopilot controls easily accessible. I've tried using FSPanel studio to create a 2d autopilot window, but I am not having any luck. I'd like someone to tell me if they succeeded in creating a 2 d window for the autopilot.

Also, at times it appears that the panels has difficulty going through a screen refresh, thus creating a slight lag.
tc
 
Aside from thinking you should be off AP and hand flying the FD, this kind of thing can be easily fixed by JF including better VC camera settings.  To me at least, the first 2 should be nicely zoomed in views of the radio/ap part of the pedestal and the OH.......these zoomed out panoramic views are useless for actually flying the plane IMO.
 
Paul
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote flyforever Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 01 Nov 2013 at 11:56am
I totally agree, Paul. I guess the location of the autopilot in the vc is at times a problem for virtual pilots. For example, the location of the autopilot on top center that is found on other aircrafts makes switching within the vc environment a natural experience.
tc
FV
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David Rogers View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote David Rogers Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 01 Nov 2013 at 12:47pm
Hi,

Regarding the AP access;  it's worth noting that this aircarft is using pure default FSX standard AP variables, so if the AP controls are hard to access in the VC, you can always assign keyboard shortcuts to control them.

Eg.... I use:-

AP Master:   'Z'
Hdg Hold:    'H'
Nav Hold:     'N'
Alt Hold:        'K'
Heading Bug (-):  '['
Heading Bug (+):  ']'
VS (-):    NUM*
VS (+):   NUM.

etc etc . (some of these, like the 'H' key replace some standard FS key assignments that I don't use).

Makes for a far more intuitive operation of the AP, at workload intensive moments.

It's a good'ish plane so far but typical Aeroplane Heaven (if it was made by them of course!); as Paul said, total lack of sound immersion using XML sounds, so all switches etc have no sounds and make the cockpit feel very cold and unimmersive.

Definitely needs some work...... (and also, yes take the autothrottle out; it should not have one, that's just default FSX AP code!).

...but these planes typically don't get improved much.  :(

(Still awaiting a SP for the DC-6B)....
David.
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Jesse View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Jesse Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 01 Nov 2013 at 2:18pm
Two things that bug me are:

1)The flap speed is ridiculously fast when you select the first notch, they literally launch themselves out of the wing!

2) Idle reverse, or the lack of. When you select reverse thrust (or press F2) the blocker doors should swing all the way into position. Not move incrementally depending on the amount of reverse thrust needed.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote flyforever Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 01 Nov 2013 at 2:18pm
That's good to know that standard keys can program the autopilot. On some planes, this is not possible, thus the need for a 2d panel.
tony
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Magic Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 01 Nov 2013 at 4:09pm
Hi there!

Hmmm...apparently I seem to be the only one having issues with the altitude indicator.
While flying at 5.000ft it reads just a little less than 2000ft...even when the correct pressure is dialed in. The spread remains even when flying under the standard pressure above the transition altitude...

Did I miss anything while setting up the ship (pitot heat is on etc.)?


"Altidue above and runway behind are useless...!" Al "Tex" Johnston
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Jeremyh Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 01 Nov 2013 at 5:45pm
Has nobody else noticed the issue with the DC-8 where only the wings and engines are showing and the whole body is missing
Jeremy
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Jeremyh Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 01 Nov 2013 at 5:46pm
anyone got a fix
Jeremy
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Paul Golding View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Paul Golding Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 01 Nov 2013 at 6:31pm
Might be useful if you stated which model/livery?   Obviously nobody else seen this so far.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote jdetrick Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 01 Nov 2013 at 6:56pm
This aircraft was normally hand flown on approaches. With the exception of a coupled ILS approach.  The autopilot more often than not was disconnected and the approach was hand flown.  Remember, this was a early generation autopilot.  Pilots were expected to know how to fly.  Hand flying this thing down to minimums demanded constant attention and a high degree of skill.  For those of you with real world IFR experience, there was no VNAV capabilities.  Doing non precision approaches,  this was a dive and drive type of aircraft.  Be configured and on speed before the final approach fix, push it over to 1500ft fpm rate of descent till 1000ft agl then 1000 fpm till your mda.  Then at vdp, if you had the runway in sight, maneuver and descend, final flaps and land.  It could be quite a handful on three engines. 
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote hifly Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 01 Nov 2013 at 8:12pm
[QUOTE=Jeremyh]Has nobody else noticed the issue with the DC-8 where only the wings and engines are showing and the whole body is missing[/QUOTE
 
Have you got FSX Sp1 & Sp2?
 
Did you close all other programmes including anti virus during installation?
 
Maybe you could uninstall and re-install
 
Good luck.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote staxx Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 02 Nov 2013 at 12:13am
Originally posted by Jeremyh Jeremyh wrote:

Has nobody else noticed the issue with the DC-8 where only the wings and engines are showing and the whole body is missing


Not only you. I also have this problem, and I have contacted support.

Even after two reinstall, the problem is still there. Guess we have to wait until after the weekend for some solution.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Paul Golding Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 02 Nov 2013 at 1:14am
Originally posted by staxx staxx wrote:

Originally posted by Jeremyh Jeremyh wrote:

Has nobody else noticed the issue with the DC-8 where only the wings and engines are showing and the whole body is missing


Not only you. I also have this problem, and I have contacted support.

Even after two reinstall, the problem is still there. Guess we have to wait until after the weekend for some solution.
 
.....or you could look at what others say and try helping yourself?  Just Flight won't wave a magic wand.  Exactly which models does this affect, and as mentioned above, have you installed SP1 & 2, or Acceleration?
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote oleandreasen Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 02 Nov 2013 at 8:00am
I do believe that this specific problem was described in the support section of the DC-8, and had to do with you needing Admin rights for installation. See the text from the support section 

• I have just installed the DC-8 and all I can see is the wings and engines, the fuselage does not appear.

This is likely to be a security failure occurring during installation. Please uninstall the DC-8 and then re-download it from your Just Flight account making sure to save the file rather than run if prompted. You can retrieve all of your downloads in the ‘My Account’ section under the ‘Payment Details’ tab of the Just Flight website. The installation file should be in your downloads folder or on your desktop.

Now, please disable your antivirus software and begin the installation by right clicking on the 'DC-8' installation icon and selecting 'Run as Administrator

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