The A2A Simulations Community

Hi,

COTS is EXCELLENT! (I think I already posted that, but anyway... )

It would be great if the FE started the engines during the flow, without prompting, and in the correct order (3, 4, 2, 1). The calls are already there when starting the engines yourself, and it is a shame that the FE doesn't start them.

I was thinking: if the FE could start the engines when the BEACON is turned ON, and stop them when the cabin door is opened with the parking brakes set, it would be great!

Best regards,
Robin.

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A2A/AccuSim. 'nuff said!

Well, to be honest that's definitely the wrong moment. They have to be definitely shut down before ANY door is opened.

Nevertheless: again I simply don't understand why we need another automatism. We have the manual start procedure. We have the auto-start feature. Why does it need a third feature to start the engines? What is so hard to pull the mixture control when at the parking stand? Sorry, I simply don't understand. A2A is building many features as real as possible and and give some (thanks god limited) help to manage the A/C nevertheless. An now we should finally end up by pressing a button and the A/C does eveything by itself and you just sit there and look how it happens? Should they finally introduce a "Start" button and the Strat does the whole flight from Gate to Gate? No worries, it's technically not a real problem.

Maybe this sounds now a bit too harsh to you? I apologize for that ... I still try to be reasonable. Where's the fun in looking at the things how they happen? A2A built a fantastic A/C to be operated manually with the (again: limited) help of the crew. I don't see any reason why they should change that concept.

And a final word: this is my personal opinion and not in any way linked to A2A's opinion.

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Oskar

i7-2600k OC 4.4 GHz, ASUS P8Z68-V PRO, WIN7-64Bit, 8GB DDR3 1600MHz, 1x OCZ Vertex 120 GB, 1 x OCZ Ibis 480 GB, 1 x GeForce GTX 580, 1200 W Power Supply, 2 monitors, ASE, EFB on remote PC

Hi Oskar,

I see your point, and agree to an extent, but let me put this to you:

* Having had the FE set up the aircraft ready for start, it seems a bit strange that as Captain, I have to jump to his seat, start the engines, then hand control back to him.

It would feel more complete if he did this himself, at the appropriate moment, and in sequence.

We have the option already to give him control of certain systems as necessary, so if we want to do everything manually, we can.

The suggestion of shutting down when opening the cabin door was only that.

Best regards,
Robin.

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A2A/AccuSim. 'nuff said!

I have to agree with Oskar here.

Personally I do not want any more automation. Starting the engines and doing the runup checks is
one of the few pleasures left to me once I enable the VFE.

Actually, I pretty much preferred NOT having a VFE and handling the aircraft and its systems myself.
Having TrackIR and camera views mapped to a hat switch to facilitate movement from left seat to
right seat, FE station or Navigators position with a flick of my thumb helped a lot.

Automate too much and you might as well be flying a default FSX tubeliner, IMO.

Paul

I see both sides of the issue, but there are certain situations where in keeping to the theme of "Captain" of the ship, I would much prefer that one of the other crew members handled something while I'm busy. Just the other day, I managed to stall an engine while taxiing to the active. As it was, I had to stop the airplane on the taxi way, and re start the engine myself. I must have flooded it, or it was fouled, because it took me several tries. I would have much preferred, in that case, to simply click a button on the Control Popup and direct the Engineer to dick with number 3, while I continued my taxi. Simply hitting the gamey "autostart" button would not have been appropriate in this situation. I say get rid of the AutoStart button and replace it with 4 small radio buttons that simply direct the FE to realistically start an engine of the Captain's choosing...it would become grayed out once the engine is running. There wouldn't be any use for such buttons to shut the engine down, because as Oksar says, it is as simple as pulling off the mixture.

That said, I have Ezca and Track IR as well, and it is no big deal to jump to the FE station, but I agree with VB2 that it would be in keeping with the consistency of having the virtual flight engineer. You see, in the make-believe world of FSX, I don't feel that it is somehow cheating to have certain things performed by another 'crew member', I've already played the role of Flight Engineer on the 377, and feel comfortable doing it myself, but now I have been promoted to Captain and it is time for my henchmen to push certain buttons. (which to a great extent the FE does, just not in this case)

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1)i7 980x 4.35 ghz, gtx 470s SLI, Matrox th2go, Creative x-fi
2)i7 2600k, Gigabyte z68x, gtx 285s sli

I handle the systems myself, too, but bigjuicyspider said it best: in keeping to the theme of "Captain" of the ship.

bigjuicyspider has a good idea regarding engine start.

Best regards,
Robin.

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A2A/AccuSim. 'nuff said!

There is no need to jump in his seat at all. The engines can be started perfectly fine from the left seat and all the controls for that are within an arm's reach for a reason. The Captain starts the engine while the FE monitors the gauges.

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Happy Landings
- Patrick

I don't think it is a point spending much more time debating, especially the ergonomics of it. In real life the Engineer would start the engines. Probably, the FO would be sticking his head out the right window to count the blades when 3 and 4 are started, and the Captain would do the same on his side for 1 and 2. Pretty sure the FE would be the one hitting the buttons..that is why the buttons are facing him on the reverse side of the panel crease. Again though it isn't a matter of ergonomics, it is just an academic point being made about task assignments and the ability of the PF to delegate those tasks.

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1)i7 980x 4.35 ghz, gtx 470s SLI, Matrox th2go, Creative x-fi
2)i7 2600k, Gigabyte z68x, gtx 285s sli

Why then are the Prime, Boost and Start buttons labeled in such a way that the Captain and FO can read them, too? I think it's simply not set in stone who is supposed to start the engines. It seems that for now it is A2A's company policy that the Captain starts the engines. That may change in the future. However, that doesn't detract from the fact I was mainly commenting on VulcanB2's claim that one had to change to the FE seat in order to perform the task, thus breaking the full "left seat experience", which simply isn't true. Nothing more was my intention.

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Happy Landings
- Patrick

They may be in arms reach, but they are not easily accessible to the guys up front.

I don't know of any aircraft that had a FE where the pilots started the engines.

Best regards,
Robin.

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A2A/AccuSim. 'nuff said!

Well, I don't even think that they are even in arms reach. Looking over their shoulders, the Front Seaters can see the ignition switches, but I doubt that they can even reach the start, prime, and boost buttons, which are not visible, without unlatching their harnesses. I certainly can't get to them from the left seat with my TrackIR (I'm trying it out, as I compose this post).

You can always read the checklist too. The button pushing is delegated to the FE.

It isn't a big deal to jump into the FE seat, but I won't concede the academic point that it mimics a realistic procedural flow for this cockpit and its layout. I'm not the one complaining about this ultimately, so don't push back too hard

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1)i7 980x 4.35 ghz, gtx 470s SLI, Matrox th2go, Creative x-fi
2)i7 2600k, Gigabyte z68x, gtx 285s sli

Strange. I can do it perfectly fine with TrackIR.

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Happy Landings
- Patrick

I have switches on my Saitek Pro dual quadrants programmed for:

Eng Sel Incr
Eng Sel Decr
Prime
Start
Boost

I sit in the left or right seat and simply mash the appropriate switches at
the appropriate time.

Actually, I have most all the things I need to access to fly the B377 programmed
using the 12 switches on the dual quadrants.

Here is the mapping of the B377 controls I use:



Here is my A2A B-17G control mapping:

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Paul


i5-2500K @4.3Ghz OC - GA-P67A-UD7-B3 - 8GB Corsair 1600mHz