Bill Casey

I have now found that on the rare occasions that this uncontrollable deviation from path occurs that by dropping your next waypoint to the scratchpad then re-inserting as the next waypoint (then Execute) your a/c will recover and LNAV can be resumed. You have to be quick before the deviation has gone too far but it does work (for me anyway!).

Sir Peter - this may be a red herring but last week PMDG released a major update for the 747 and since then some users have been reporting some aircraft instability flying-wise. It may be coincidence but thus far those reporting problems are all Vista users (and most of their names begin with J fwiw). It might just be worth checking if you and this user are using the same 747 version and OS when testing this problem? While I'm here, since I'm running ASX SP3 and the latest 747 version I'll bung the latest FSUIPC on (I'm currently on 4.26) and see how things go pour moi.

Maybe I should change my Installer to check for FSCopilot, and put FSUIPC4 before it if it is there? Doing that would certainly make sure that people didn't suggest that FSUIPC had broken FSInn! It wouldn't solve everybody's dll.xml issues though since if they subsequently installed other add-ons then they'd still muck up the order of it anyway but at least they'd being addressing the issue to someone else! MS really did create a monster with dll.xml although I guess it's one that was difficult to foresee as becoming an issue until the various FSX add-ons hit the marketplace. Another "lesson learned" from FSX for when FS11 arrives one hopes!

It is indeed a strange one Sir Pete. Copilot likes to be the last entry then FSUIPC after things like PMDGs. Some people find Leveld below FSIUIPC works. On my system I find Copilot last then FSUIPC second last works best, after LevelD which is after PMDG. Some people find a different mix works BUT the common thread is always Copilot last.

Sorry, only just spotted this one! It's quite a simple fix. Firstly, in your DLL.XML file make sure that Copilot is the last entry. It must ALWAYS be the last entry so if you ever install/reinstall aything else in FSX you'll need to move it again. You can also achieve this by deinstalling and reinstalling FSInn/FSCopilot. Then open FSX, launch FSInn from your Windows START menu, the programme you want to run is FSInnUI. This will launch the FSInn Control Panel. Now click on the Chat button. It'll open fine. You only need to do it this way once and after that you can run FSInn as previously from you ADD ON drop-down menu in FSX. Pete - it's simply because the FSUIPC install pops it below Copilot as do all other add-ons. It's a quirk of FSInn/FSX not your installer. It's a PITA and the most FAQ'd "feature" of FSInn!

Pete Yes the advice with ASX is to load that first, let it do it's stuff downloading and setting itself up, and then launch FSX. I've always done it that way then, as I mentioned, things tend to be a bit more stable if one uses the "launch FSX" button inside ASX. Now this, to answer your quessie earlier, I do on the same PC. I have no idea if any of this applies with a remote PC because I've never run that setup. Jim S at ASX may be able to furnish you with the techie side of this when he's back from hols.

Yes, I made Jim aware of it a week or so ago but I mentioned it here just as piece of general info since everything seems more stable if FSX is launched from within ASX.

ASX SP3 Beta was released to the public last night, John might like to try that and see if it makes a difference. Note that the advice is to use wind smoothing in FSUIPC and not ASX if using both. One thing I have discovered in trying to recreate John's prob is that ASX is more prone to crash if launched outside of ASX rather than using the "launch FSX" button inside ASX, that might be worth trying although when I had those crashes it was xengine that crashed rather than FS itself.

FYI Peter - my testing was done with SP2 not Acceleration. I wasn't however running ASX on a remote machine.

Michael One thing you havn't mentioned is whether or not you have ASX Wind Smoothing option on or not. I achieved my best results with 4.241/ASX with ASX Wind Smoothing OFF. Which way do you have it set?

4.241 with LevelD 767X, all smoothing on, all turbulance suppressed, smoothing thread OFF. Using ASX (wind smoothing off). Flew Glasgow-Stansted in order to get a fair few changes of weather station on the way down and all in all a thoroughly pleasant flight with some nice slight bumpy stuff in the Lorel hold. Basically nothing to report :D Next time will be the 747X on the same flight, same settings and see if there's any difference between the two. Next time I'm passing Stoke I'm going to buy this Dowson geezer a jolly good lunch!

Well, since air compressibility comes into it I suspect sudden changes in pressure could also contribute. Did you have the pressure smoothing enabled too? Yessir, I've kept that on throughout my testing. The only difference this time was that it was my first test of your betas with ASX so that added another variable to the pot and to me it's a question of getting the two playing nicely (which they so very nearly are). Pressure didn't seem too variable but that's a factor that I wasn't looking for, I'll run the same exercise again later, increase the OAT smoothing and keep a closer eye on the pressures to see if I can spot a common factor. My 747X also has an OAT meter so I'll watch that more closely as well. It is only a minor wrinkle in my opinion and doesn't cause major issues for me but of course what to me isn't a big issue may easily be described by someone else as a "huge variation and significant surging"! I'll try and remember to turn off the smoothing thread this time as well.

FSUIPC's temp smoothing tries to control the OAT. The other factors involved in computing TAT might be the ones actually doing the jumping anout.How many degrees per second do you call a "significant chunk" by the way? I don't even pretend to understand the links between OAT and TAT but I do know the effect it has on Mach numbers and the autothrottles! In terms of "chunks" the TATs were shifting between -25C and -40C, smoothed to an extent (again, way better than previously) but sharp enough movements of +/- 5C at a time to cause Mach numbers to go from 0.82 to 0.86 in a couple of seconds thus causing a bit of surging/dropping of the engines. Not violent though, just enough to make me notice and I have a log of this phase of flight if it's any use. I do realise that you can only go so far on that aspect and quite honestly the effect is so much better than it was that I can quite easily live with it as it is now. On my next test with ASX I'll increase the OAT smoothing parameter a bit since I'm certain that that'll fix it.

OK, 4.241 is very good. One long 747x flight with the smoothing thread on (same other settings - all smoothing, turbulances off) and everything went fairly tickettyboo. I'll switch it off for tomorrow's flight but I'm very confident of excellent results. The only ripple this afternoon were slightly more excited TATs than of recent versions even with temp smoothing on, they were hopping up and down in fairly significant chunks but again nothing violent enough to cause a real problem. Smoothing thread off tomorrow and away we go :)

Hmm, curious, it does only say "partially installed" yet I'm delighted with the results. I get bigger and nastier wind changes with FS2002 than I'm getting with this! Still, no matter, I have another new version to assault this afternoon :twisted: .... that's if I don't watch the rugby and drink beer instead :D

I will now confess to being a tad confused! Having read the other threads ref Acceleration and SP2 I am wondering why the smoothing has been having such a stunning effect for me when I don't use Acceleration, just vanilla SP2?! Also many of the testers who have been using ASX have reported big problems but you'll see below that I didn't find this..... Anyway, prior to reading all those posts I did a test with 4.239 and ASX last night. A pretty hard-nosed test it was too! Settings as before: all smoothing on, turbulances suppressed. ASX smoothing off. Prior to this test I'd done all mine with FSX own weather so this one promised to be interesting! I flew Keflavik to Birmingham simply because the current weather at BIKF could only be described as "violent"! Winds 140 @55 gusting 75 and using Rway 11. ASX allied with 4.239 rendered this absolutely perfectly, taxiing was hard work, take off was very sideways and well bumpy on the way upwards, no sign of the PMDG losing it's heading despite that massive wind and turb. I was more than impressed. Cruise was fine, a bit of TAT movement but nothing nasty, pressure surprisingly quite stable. No strange layers seen below me at all. One major achievement is that prior to these beta versions of FSUIPC I'd always had problems with ASX not giving me accurate winds and pressure for the destination until almost at touchdown but last night was wonderful, once within about c30 miles I was getting the QNH spot on and the winds as per forecast. Perfect! I am more than happy with this now. The only slight question mark was that I was cruising at FL370 with wind 206/12 but the layer above (38327) was showing 192/12 and the layer below (33999) was showing 165@21 so I was a fair few degrees beyond them both. Strange but not really a problem. I note the request to stand down for now and await further orders!

That's strange, Peter, because it seems to be working wonders on my beastie and I'm not using Acceleration!

Excellent Pete, in that case tomorrow I shall do the same flight yet again but with ASX in the mix :shock: That one promises to be quite entertaining, if there are any particular settings you want me to try then give me a yell.

Morning guv, Well I sneaked in test with 4.236. Same flight, 747X, same FSUIPC settings (all suppressed, smoothing on) and FSX download weather. Excellent News: No FS crash so either my dll.xml fix worked or something that you did worked! I still reckon it was the dll.xml last time though. Good News: Very smooth flight (spookily smooth actually) with very consistent winds and pressures but then it was relatively stable high pressure over N Europe yesterday. On both climb and descent I went through layers of Turb at 2 or 3 with a bit of bumpyness, no losses of headings so the suppression is still working. In the cruise it was sooo smooth that for 10 minutes I turned all smoothing and suppressions off and nothing happened at all! Strange News: On departure at Oslo I was not getting their current weather, in fact no weather at all with the exception of a repeat of the extremely high temps on the ground at Oslo (+45C in Feb?!). I suspect that there's a problem with the ENGM source of FSX downloads. Apart from the high temps it was 0 wind and 1013mb QNH. Next time I'll switch logging on at that point just to double-check what's going on. I do know however that the downloads are working since on arrival at Glasgow the weather was spot-on with the current Metars. Potentially odd news: I spotted some dodgy looking layers en route, well below me but noted them anyway. Screenie below and I have a log running at this point as well if required. You can see that something odd happens between FL170 and FL240 but since I didn't climb through that I didn't get any effects from it. The layers do seem well separated though. I don't recall seeing any funny narrow layers. At the moment of the screenie I was cruising at FL360 and the wind was spot on. One thing that was noticeable was that at FL360 the TAT's were remarkably warm, never dropping below -23, whereas you'd normally get a heck of a lot colder. Overall another excellent result!

I havn't yet tested this with ASX though, do you want to wait for that before a pukka release just to make sure? I'll get that one done on Fri/Sat if the 4.235 test on Thursday is another good one (with the fixed dll.xml :oops: ). I'd really like to do one in the LDS 767X too, just to make absolutely sure that we're cooking on gas!

Ah ok, I've just done one with 4.234! I'll try 4.235 on Thursday (and check for a 4.236 before doing it :wink: ). I'm pilot mentoring on Wednesday so can't try it then. Anyway, tonight's with 4.234 if it's of any value! PMDG 744X again, Oslo-Glasgow as usual, FS Downloaded weather with 15 minute update, FSUIPC pretty much as it comes - pressure smoothing at 20, temp smoothing at 29, all turbulances supressed. Excellent flight - TATs moved but didn't jump, pressure moved but didn't jump, absolutely no sudden wind shifts, lovely climb and cruise with no nasties at all. On descent I passed through a layer at cFL240 where Weatherset showed quite a pressure gradient and, yes, the TATs moved fairly sharply but nothing nasty at all just a hint of a power surge but nothing like previously. This is nice! I couldn't check it all the way down since I got a CTD passing through FL160 that I think I have traced to the DLL.XML file which had a changed order of loading with FSUIPC4 below FSCopilot (from the last time I created a new FSUIPC.INI), this is a "known" Bad Thing to have FSCopilot loading before anything else in DLL.XML. My fault for not checking it :oops: So, all in all, this is looking incredibly good. 4.235 (or later) on Thursday night. The EGPF boys are starting to expect my arrival at about 2100z these days!

Well I've just done that same flight in the PMDG with v4232, all turbulence and gusts suppressed, pressure smoothing at 20 and OAT smoothing at 30. Absolutely brilliant :D Smooth as silk in most respects, most enjoyable. If 4233 is even better then I think we may have to elevate Pete above his customary Sainthood, in the last week the fun of flying FSX has multiplied 10 times thanks to this work. I'll fly the same flight again with v4233 tomorrow and see how that goes. Pete, you are indeed an absolute star. This is a fantastic achievement to rid of us this rubbish in FSX :D That is as 'insightful and analytical' as this evening's report will get I'm afraid :wink:

Was this when cruising at one level, not climbing/descending? I can't control TAT, but you could see if enabling the OAT smoothing helps. This was when cruising at FL340. I'll try the OAT smoothing. Strangely on this flight most of the probs were caused by TAT changes, pressure was relatively well behaved or so it seemed. It certainly wasn't rock solid but most of the engine thrashing was caused by TAT variation. I don't blame you for getting disheartened but take comfort in the fact that things are now VASTLY better than they were!

Oh yes, this works! v4231 with all turbulance off (incl clouds) also gusts suppressed and FSX download weather I just had quite a nice flight in the PMDG 747X :D No nasty wind shifts at all, pressure varied a wee bit but TATs are a problem though, they were varying sharply from -22C to -34C which means your Mach varies from c.76 to the c.86 with an intended cruise of .820 so masses of power surges and drops, that does need smoothing more than the pressure (based on this flight anyway). No nasty loss of heading and nicely and suitably bumpy for tonight's weather on finals into Glasgow. All in all the best flight I've had on FSX yet in the 747 but we do need to do something about the TATs, it would have been a lovely flight without that jumping as much as it did and, as a veteran of many long range 744 flights real world as a passenger you rarely hear the engines surge/plummet like that in the cruise. Nice one sir, methinks you're so very nearly there!

Sorry squire, I meant I'd fly it again with the later version, I didn't mean 4224 even though I typed it :roll: The weather for the above flight was FSX Download weather with the 15 minute refresh so that's where that temperature at Oslo came from. Very strange. I havn't yet thrown ASX into the mix as well. This time I'll turn off all the turbulance and gusts and see what happens, I'll use the FSX weather source again.