WestWind Airlines

I flew the B777-200LR from Frankfurt - Amsterdam and then from Amsterdam - London.

Frankfurt - Amsterdam was with about 40% fuel.
Amsterdam - London was at 100% fuel and MTOW on departure and about 40% fuel on landing.

I have not yet installed the virtual cockpit.

Comments:

• Auto Throttles. On both flights the autothrottles continued to accelerate past the red line when switched to speed hold mode after takeoff. I had to manually disengage them in order to keep from getting into overspeed. Speed hold was set at 220kts.
• Autopilot. The autopilot had a lot of difficulty tracking the glide slope. At London it porpoised so badly I had to manually fly the approach. This may be related to the fact that I was getting very slow framerates in the high scenery areas even in the 2D mode.(4 fps). It was also difficult to know if the weight and balance was correct without any guidance other than the FSX WB diagram which is usually wrong and appeared to be wrong in this case.
• Checklist and Reference Files. There is no checklist or reference file with it the way it was installed.
• Panel. The panel is the B737 panel for FSX (I think). It is nice enough.
• Framerates. I was getting about 5.8 fps when looking at the plane in spot view regardless of whether or not I was in a high density scenery area. The graphics took about 10 seconds to paint the airplane whenever I switched to spot view. This is pretty typical of my experience with many of our planes in FSX so I am not sure what other's would experience here. I don't seem to have that problem with the G550 though.
• Night texture rendering was very nice but again at low framerates. This is what I would consider to be normal and unlike the 747 in FSX which appears like a flourescent blue guppy at night in my version.

Conclusion: It is flyable, but I can't say it is one of the better planes I have flown.

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WWA1702 Senior Command Captain +3
RWP SEL Instrument Rating (almost)
WW Test Pilot
Monster Driver

Thanks Mike, we may be starting down a long road here......a couple of comments on your comments.

The autothrottles may be a problem with what switch engages what mode.  On several FS9 aircraft when you engage SPD it is actually Mach hold mode, which either causes idle power or full power, may or may not have the same issue in FSX

Posky is still working on some sort of reference material.

There may be a freeware FSX panel we could try (maybe we can get John to mod his FS9 777 panel?).

Frame rates......I'm having the same issue in FS9 with the textures taking a while to load.  I think in my case it's because the Boeing paint has 32 bit textures, which while nice, have a definite affect on frame rates.  I haven't tried anything at night yet.

Autopilot.  I haven't done approaches yet, but it sounds like something in the autopilot settings is screwed up a little (I've had that same problem alot in FS9, and it could be related to your low frames in the London area......

I have found that FS9 and it looks like FSX are hopeless when it comes to the weight and balance diagram.  Some aircraft it appears to work right, others it is way off......

I guess my burning question right now is did the fuel usage look reasonable and do you think it could do the Amsterdam to Sydney route non-stop?

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EHAM-YSSY B772LR

If these things are fixable, great. Like I said, it is flyable and if we just want a B777 in the FSX fleet it will work.

I did not see anything that caused me concern in the fuel area but I will try the EHAM - YSSY route and see.

 

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WWA1702 Senior Command Captain +3
RWP SEL Instrument Rating (almost)
WW Test Pilot
Monster Driver

Flight Test Report.

Amsterdam - Sydney. (You did mean Sydney and not Auckland. Yes?)
Flight Status: Finished
FSX

I am at FL370 at mach .80. My projected flight time is 19 hours and my projected fuel is 22 hours. I have a 35kt tailwind, Allowing for burn-off of fuel and climbing to a higher altitude, it looks like I am going to have fuel to spare. The return trip looks feasable as well at this point. One interesting thing about this trip is that in the norther hemisphere the prevailing winds are westerly and in the souther hemisphere they are easterly and they should pretty much cancel each other out.

Landed Sydney with 29% fuel in the tanks after shutdown. Flight time was 20.0 hours. Portions flown at 16x.

Seems right on to me and very capable of flying the Monster routes.

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WWA1702 Senior Command Captain +3
RWP SEL Instrument Rating (almost)
WW Test Pilot
Monster Driver

Hi Guys,

 I converted our current 777-200LR and 777-300ER from the FS9 fleet to the FSX fleet. The 200LR has a problem with take off as it just won't take off. It could have something to do with weight and balance but I'm still working on it. The 300ER however worked a charm. Theres was no problems and it flys like a dream. If its just a 777 your looking for, I reccomend just changing the cockpit and sound on the FS9 300ER and it will work perfectly on FSX.

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Eoin Coates
Command Captain
Real World Student Pilot
Frankfurt am Mein-Hub Manager

"Stranger things have happened"

Aviation only contributes to around 3% of world emissions, so leave us alone!!!

I've tried the POSKY VC that I sent both Mike & Kim

I tried adding the info into the .CFG file to make it work and...

Yep it went horribly wrong!

The VC takes you to the Cokpit view, there is no VC!

Also as you can see; No gagues, No systems, No Nothing!

I give up on triying to make it work!!

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Test Pilot

50 Hours x6
Green Monster x2
P001
October 2008 Screenshot Comp Winner

VATID: 1040117
Controller: UK Heathrow & Essex Region

WWA2104:

Hi Guys,

 I converted our current 777-200LR and 777-300ER from the FS9 fleet to the FSX fleet. The 200LR has a problem with take off as it just won't take off. It could have something to do with weight and balance but I'm still working on it. The 300ER however worked a charm. Theres was no problems and it flys like a dream. If its just a 777 your looking for, I reccomend just changing the cockpit and sound on the FS9 300ER and it will work perfectly on FSX.

Eoin, I'd rather not go that route.  The MELJET 777's in the FS9 fleet currently were basically designed and released right at the tail end of FS2002 (FS8).  I have had minor fde issues with them.  I think the Posky birds will fit the bill much better, and offer a much better shot at something that will work in FSx as well as FS9, that and I really want the 777-200F for the fleet.....

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EHAM-YSSY B772LR

Mike Gibbs:

Flight Test Report.

Amsterdam - Sydney. (You did mean Sydney and not Auckland. Yes?)
Flight Status: Finished

I am at FL370 at mach .80. My projected flight time is 19 hours and my projected fuel is 22 hours. I have a 35kt tailwind, Allowing for burn-off of fuel and climbing to a higher altitude, it looks like I am going to have fuel to spare. The return trip looks feasable as well at this point. One interesting thing about this trip is that in the norther hemisphere the prevailing winds are westerly and in the souther hemisphere they are easterly and they should pretty much cancel each other out.

Landed Sydney with 29% fuel in the tanks after shutdown. Flight time was 20.0 hours. Portions flown at 16x.

Seems right on to me and very capable of flying the Monster routes.

Thanks Mike, that was exactly what I was looking for.  I think fde wise we're going to be very close with an "out of the box" fde.....

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EHAM-YSSY B772LR

One more thing.

The autopilot tracked the Glideslope a lot better at 180kts. That seems really fast to me. The landing was HOT we got down and stopped without incident.

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WWA1702 Senior Command Captain +3
RWP SEL Instrument Rating (almost)
WW Test Pilot
Monster Driver

That is a bit fast, I usually fly the final in any 777 at about 150 knots with full flaps.  This should be fixable, it is either in the autopilot coding or there may be an issue with drag (or lack there of) in the fde.....

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EHAM-YSSY B772LR

Mike Gibbs:

One more thing.

The autopilot tracked the Glideslope a lot better at 180kts. That seems really fast to me. The landing was HOT we got down and stopped without incident.

My 777 traked the glideslope at around 160kts and best at 200kts

Seems way too fast to me!

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Test Pilot

50 Hours x6
Green Monster x2
P001
October 2008 Screenshot Comp Winner

VATID: 1040117
Controller: UK Heathrow & Essex Region

Ok, lets try something with the glideslope issue.......

Locate your aircraft.cfg and open it with notepad or something similar....

Find the [autopilot] section and replace the part at the bottom with this (make a backup copy first!!), be careful not to overwrite the very last line in the autopilot section which says yaw_damper_gain=1 ....

nav_proportional_control=        12.00
nav_integrator_control=            0.10
nav_derivative_control=            0.03
nav_integrator_boundary=        0.5
nav_derivative_boundary=        0.35
gs_proportional_control=        13.00
gs_integrator_control=            0.40
gs_derivative_control=            0.10
gs_integrator_boundary=            0.50
gs_derivative_boundary=            0.25

These entries all deal with how the autopilot interacts with nav and gs signals......hopefully this will be an improvement (it's worked for me before on a few cranky airplanes in FS9 that had glideslope issues....).

Now go out and fly some aproaches, but do it at an airport that is easy on the frame rates (I like Oscoda Michigan, but we all have our favorites) and has an ILS.  I would do these approaches with no weather and no wind, we are just looking for glideslope behavior.  The max landing weight of a 777-200LR is 492,000 pounds, so shoot for a weight in that neighborhood and a speed between 150 to 160 knots (160 may be a little high).......let me know how it goes.....

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EHAM-YSSY B772LR

VPCargo:

Ok, lets try something with the glideslope issue.......

Locate your aircraft.cfg and open it with notepad or something similar....

Find the [autopilot] section and replace the part at the bottom with this (make a backup copy first!!), be careful not to overwrite the very last line in the autopilot section which says yaw_damper_gain=1 ....

nav_proportional_control=        12.00
nav_integrator_control=            0.10
nav_derivative_control=            0.03
nav_integrator_boundary=        0.5
nav_derivative_boundary=        0.35
gs_proportional_control=        13.00
gs_integrator_control=            0.40
gs_derivative_control=            0.10
gs_integrator_boundary=            0.50
gs_derivative_boundary=            0.25

These entries all deal with how the autopilot interacts with nav and gs signals......hopefully this will be an improvement (it's worked for me before on a few cranky airplanes in FS9 that had glideslope issues....).

Now go out and fly some aproaches, but do it at an airport that is easy on the frame rates (I like Oscoda Michigan, but we all have our favorites) and has an ILS.  I would do these approaches with no weather and no wind, we are just looking for glideslope behavior.  The max landing weight of a 777-200LR is 492,000 pounds, so shoot for a weight in that neighborhood and a speed between 150 to 160 knots (160 may be a little high).......let me know how it goes.....

I will check it out and get back to you. Regarding airports, Ken liked doing some at sea level and some at altitude. We used KMSY (New Orleans) and KCOS (Colorado Springs) to test the G550. He also wanted me to check it out at La Paz, Bolivia wihich is about 14,000 ft msl I think.

I want to find some test facilities in Europe to build the concept of our European HQ. I will look around for a couple of similar sites. Palma De Mallorca,Spain (LEPA) is a nice field on one of the big islands in the Mediterranean for a sea level field. I will have to give some thought to a high altitude field. Kathmandu, Nepal is the only thing that comes to mind but it is not really in Europe.

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WWA1702 Senior Command Captain +3
RWP SEL Instrument Rating (almost)
WW Test Pilot
Monster Driver

Kathmandu is very pretty but not the greatest for testing approaches if i remember correctly.  I will look around for a high elevation airport in  the Alps for you when i get home tonight.

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Flight Test Report

Palma de Malorca (LEPA) - Local
Weather - none
Takeoff weight 495,235 (Max Landing Weight (492,000)
Landing Weight: ~ 485,000 lbs (I think)
FSX

1st Takeoff. Resulted in a crash due to overstressing the airframe caused by excessive speed. I was watching this and thought I had the speed under control, took my eyes off it for a minutes and it was well, sayonara. I need to work on my scan.

2nd Takeoff was more normal, but I just shut down the autothrottle all together and reset it. This worked OK but this aspect of the plane is not acceptable as is.

1st Landing Attempt. The autopilot held the GS perfectly at 150 kts (top of the yellow arc BTW) as long as I let the autothrottle control the throttles. I went manual on the speed at about 1000 ft AGL and had touble controlling the speed. It varied from about 138 kts to 160 or so and started porpoising around the GS. I decided to go around and have another approach. The throttle are very hard to adjust like you want them. Some of this might be the engines taking time to spin up. Even on the taxi, I am always fiddling with the speed. It is always too slow or too fast. There is no in-between.

2nd landing attempt. Otto tracked the GS PERFECTLY at 150 kts almost all the way to the RWY. I went manual at 400 ft AGL or maybe a little lower (I was in awe at this point and actually toyed with the idea of letting her autoland). I got the mains down a little (not much) long. I had plenty of RWY to work with but got on the thrust reversers just a little too quick, slammed the nose down and collapsed the nose gear when it came down. It seemed to me that that should not have happened but with being that close to Max Landing Weight and getting on it a little quick, maybe I deserved it. Not sure.

Note: I hope we can do something to make it paint faster. I really dislike seeing the airplane paint every time I switch to an outside view.

Note. I still have not messed around with the VC. Maybe James could take that project on.

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WWA1702 Senior Command Captain +3
RWP SEL Instrument Rating (almost)
WW Test Pilot
Monster Driver