WestWind Airlines

Bug Report:

This is what I am tracking for fixes on the G550:

Autopilot - Critical

 

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-KenG

G550 Test Flight Report. 10 MAR 2008.

 

Here is a little more detail on the first flight. I was not really trying to do anything but get a feel for the airplane. I did not read any of the documentation. I just took off.

 

The engines started OK with CTRL E, but died when I cut the throttle to idle. I did this several times with the same result. I kept a little throttle to keep the engines running.

 

Taxiing was normal and she handled well on the ground.

 

Takeoff was normal. Nothing unusual except that I had been used to flying the B752 and the controls seemed very touchy. I got used to it after a little while. I might prefer them to be a little less robust, but you can be the judge of that. I had the same reaction to the A321 the other day. I thought I was going to turn it upside down.

 

Here is the excerpt from my flight log (embellished) describing the rest of the flight. I might add that the engines were running in the normal range. They were not redlined.

 

Tashkent - UT1Q. Climbed to FL430 at 5000 fpm, then to FL470 at 3000 fpm then to FL500 and coffin corner (or close enough to see it anyway- FL500 and 200 KIAS) at 1000 fpm. Started with 30% fuel. At FL500 I had 5% left. At FL400 or thereabouts, on the way down, I ran out completely. I did an emergency landing at UT1Q dead stick from FL400. Pictures available. I think we need to tweak the fuel consumption.

 

I will add that on the way down, I had an opportunity to give the gear, flaps and spoiler a thorough workout and they all see to work fine. The brakes work well. The contact points look good. She is a really well done airplane. I liked her right off.

 

The only negative is that the radios were too small to read on the panel. They look like gibberish to these 55 year old eyes. Once I displayed the radios using the radio icon, a larger, more readable version appeared and I was happy.

 

Mach .83 seemed to keep me just below the yellow arc. If she is supposed to do mach .88, we are not getting it all. This is just going by the markings on the airspeed indicator. I did not attempt a stall nor did I come close to entering one.

 

[EDIT] The landing gear safe lights don’t work. They are always three green.

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

G550 Test Flight Report - 10 MAR 2008 (Flight 2)

I flew from UT1Q back to Tashkent at FL190. About 80 nm.

 

Observatsions.

 

Any time either I or the autopilot takes the throttles to flight idle, the engines quit. This happened on approach but I landed OK.

 

The autopilot was tracking the glide slope very high--about a full needle deflection. At least I think it was tracking it. The APP mode was selected and it intercepted the localizer OK. The glide slope intercept needs more testing.

 

I tested the overspeed warning. I expected a stick shake, but did not get anything. I was well above the red line on the airspeed indicator. It just hits a wall and dies. I did not get the airspeed at which it overstressed. It seems like the FS9 G550 did this as well.

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

G550 Test Flight Report - 11 MAR 2008

UTTT - UTDD,  FL180, IFR. (about 160 nm)

Fuel consumption is a consistent problem. Left UTTT with 85% fuel. Landed 160 miles away with 49% fuel. 

Flight Idle continues to be a consistent issue. I cut the throttles a little too much on approach and, walla, a third power off landing.

Angle of attack indicator is not functioning properly on the ground. It fluctuates wildly between both extremes (0-1). Works fine in the air.

Backup attitude indicator 'flashes' in the bottom few pixels. May be a graphics problem or positioning problem on that gauge.

Approach and Landing: This was a non-autopilot approach in good weather. The G550 handled well on the approach and landing except for killing the engines and making a power off landing. Even then, it handled well and it was pretty tame. It does require a very light touch on the controls, but I am getting used to it and am beginning to like it.

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

G550 Test Flight Report - 11 MAR 2008 (Flight 2)

Chasing the boogy man.

Engines: I manually started the engines this time instead of using CTRL E. I did not encounter the problem with the engine dying. The only ofher difference I could see was that I was in a fuel box with 100% fuel when I started up. This is the first and only time this has happened. The problem never materialized during the entire flight and I tested for it several times.

Overspeed warning: The red text overspeed warning at the bottom right of the screen seems to be working propertly, but I did not get a stick shake before she broke up in mid air. Ken, please note, this is an overspeed issue, not a stall issue. I have not tested a stall yet. The red do not exceed warning strip on the airspeed indicator seems to be in the right place at mach .88. This contradicts what I (thought) I saw on an earlier flight, but I was paying closer attention to this issue on this flight.

[edit] see stalls below.

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FL330 starting in level flight

I set the mach hold to 1.10. I found the boogy man at mach .98 where she broke up in mid-air. The most she would do at FL330 was mach .94 with about 60% fuel. I had to put her into a 5000 fpm descent for quite a while to get her to mach .98 where she died.

Restarted the flight from save

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FL510 starting in level flight

I set the mach hold to 1.40 and she maxed out about mach .94 (I think). Set up the 5000 fpm descent as before and found the boogy man at mach 1.07. Yes, you can call me Chuck now.

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Fuel Consumption: I flew about 500 miles and used about 75% of the fuel.

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Other: 

Departure Stall: Very nice recovery characteristics. Some of the best in MSFS.

Arrival Stall: Would not really enter the stall. The stall warning went off, but she did not fully stall. This seemed realistic to me and I thought it might be an intentional design characteristic.

Split S: Nice. Had to use the speed break to keep her from overspeeding.

Loop: Stalled at the top of the loop. Nice recovery from a nasty stall.

Roll: Nice

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Arrival and landing. I used an unusual arrival technique since I was really high. It was a steep dive toward the runway with the spoilers deployed until shortly before touchdown. Arrived over the threshold at about the right airspeed with full flaps and gear down and spoiler retracted. Very nice landing. You can tell the plane is slick, but once you get used to it, it handles like a dream.

Taxi and ground handling. Perfect

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Other Comments:

This is a pilots airplane. People are really going to like this one!!!

 

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

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-KenG

UPDATED: 12MAR08

Bug Report:

This is what I am tracking for bugs on the G550:

1. Autopilot - Critical -> Should be fixed
   
2. Engine Quiting - Critical -> Could not duplicate. Check with new FDE
   
3. Landing Gear Indicators - NonCritical fix
4. Radio - NonCritical fix
5. Airspeed Tape - NonCritical nofix
6. AoA Indicator - Noncritical nofix
7. Overspeed Warning - Noncritical fix -> Could not find stick shaker for Overspeed. Tested both 345 KIAS and Mach 0.885 Overspeed and seemed to work
   
8. Fuel Burn - Test further -> Reduced fuel scaler from 1.3 to 0.75 ... increased drag by 10% retest.
   

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-KenG

G550 Test Flight Report - 12 MAR 2008

UTTT - Local: I wanted to test these issues at UTTT before moving.

Engine cutoff: I have verified that this only happens when you start the engines using CTRL E. It does not manifest itself if I manually start the engines. I will test this at another airport, but I doubt it will make any difference.

Fuel Consumption: Seems to be better. I need to give you a full profile, but for now this is what I think. The fuel flow gauge in my opion is off by a factor of 10. I climbed to FL450 at 2500 fpm and used 20% of the fuel. At cruise at FL450, I was getting 1315 pph with 31215 FOB (assume lbs) at mach .88. This would indicate a flying time of ~24 hours. I seem to remember having this problem with this gauge on a different airplane. The actual flying time is more like 2.4 hours. This is consistent with the fact that I had about 60-65% fuel (I think) when I landed. I will get you better numbers on this an confirm what I have said here.

ILS. The ILS seems to be doing much better. I landed in a thunderstorm, so it was a little hard to tell. The glide slope tracked nicely, but the ILS capture was off by a full needle deflection on capture, then swung the other way a full needle deflection. I will test this using better weather conditions and report again.

Rough Weather: The thunderstorm was really bouncing me around. It seemed a lot more realistic than in most MSFS airplanes. Turbulence caused 20-30 degree left and right fluctuations in roll.

Other: The lightning bolt Icon does not function.

Radio: Here is a thought. If you moved the icons to left underneath the primary flight display, you would have room to put the radio panel underneath the MFD and make it nearly as large as the MFD. Just a thought. I played with it and it is very readable in that location.

 

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

Mike,

 I adjusted fuel flow and then flew the airplane to exhaustion at FL510. There does seem to be something wrong with the fuel flow indicator on the panel, which makes sense considering that I set everything based on fuel flow. I think there is a test gauge on AVSIM I am going to download and install onto the panel to try and work out the issues with the fuel flow,. 

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-KenG

G550 Test Flight Report - 12 MAR 2008 (flight 2)

1. Engine quitting. Verified that it is a problem only when doing CTRL E to start.
2. ILS/Autopilot.
1. Autopilot Altitude Capture. Perfect 
2. ILS Localizer Capture. Needs work. Three full needle deflections and never really captured it.
3. ILS Glide Slope Capture. This looked OK, but I was a little distracted by the localizer, so I need to recheck it.
3. General Handling. This time the super responsiveness got me. In trying to get lined up to land, I could not get it smoothed out and consequently collapsed the landing gear on landing. It was just porpoising on approach.[edit] I think some of this is due to the fact that my capability to trim the airplane dissappeared from my yoke. I reset the button assignments. We will see if that makes difference.
4. Fuel Flow Data - Also available in a spreadsheet upon request. Procedure. I set the autopilot to climb to FL500 at 2500 fpm and checked the FF and FOB as I passed each of the designated altitudes. STTO was measured at the inner marker outbound just after lifoff. Airspeed was 250 kts to 10,000 ft (actually about 12,000), then 290 kts until I reached mach .81 (about FL430 I think), then set to mach .84 to FL500. 2500 fpm was maintained to about FL430 (I think) and then 1000 fpm to FL500 at which time she was cooking along at mach .83. Then I levelled off, achieved a stable cruise FF and recorded it. Descended to FL400 and repeated the procedure. After recording at 10,000 ft, I filed IFR and followed ATC instructions for the approach to RWY 28.

Aircraft	G550
Airport	KMSY
	Fuel Qty (lbs)	Fuel Qty (Pct)	FF (pph)
Fuel before startup	40694	99.9	0.0
At idle	40596	100	472.5
STTO	38824	95	7296.0
10000 ft	37141	91	2916.8
FL200	35597	87	2570.0
FL300	34292	84	2363.9
FL400	33094	81	1994.3
FL500	31450	77	1237.3
Cruise at FL500	30883	76	980.3
Cruise at FL400	30180	74	1108.6
Cruise at FL300	29325	72	1567.0
Cruise at FL200	28060	69	1027.1	Yes, this is correct
Cruise iat 10000 ft	27218	67	1054.0
On landing
On shutdown

 

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

Is this with the new aircraft.cfg that I sent you? The ILS was spot on when I tried it out and the airplane even performed an autoland.

I found the problem with the fuel flow, it is in fact the gauge that is the problem. The A321 gauge that is used does not correctly report fuel flow. I installed a secondary gauge in the aircraft readjusted the fuel flow back to .50 and took the airplane to Fl510. After STTO and climb I still had 13 hours of fuel at Mach 0.85 resulting in 6,300 nm of cruise fuel. I will send out the new version 1.3 of the FDE and some upgrades to the panel later.

 
-Ken
 

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-KenG

Yes, it is the new version. I was scratching my head over that one too. I think I will replace it again just to be sure. I need another flight tonight anyway. I will repost and let you know.

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

G550 Flight Test Report - 12 MAR 2008 (Flight 3)

Retest ILS localizer and glide slope capture. Not much  change. As far as I can tell, this is the new aircraft.cfg file. I flew the approach initial leg at 220 kts (vs 250 kts before). It did capture the localizer this time, but there were two full width deviations prior to getting lined up correctly. The GS seems to be doing fine. I am searching for the right airspeed that will keep it tracking the GS. It seems to be around 160. Need to confirm this. If I am too slow, it starts chasing the GS needle, speeding up and slowing down as other airplanes in FS do. It seems slightly more pronounced in this plane. Ken, are you sure you send me the new version?

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

Mike the FS9 version of the G550 for WWA descends the GS anywhere from 160-170 and stays within one line dont know if this would be different since it is the same plane only a newer FS model

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Phil Cohen WWA1573
Sr. Command Captain
EVP - Charter Operations
VP - Hub Ops - Europe & Pacific

Phil,

The FDE is brand new for the FSX model. I opened up airwrench and did some serious work trying to get the airplane dynamically balanced. Thus we are having to slowly retest everything again. She also uses the autopilot right off the FSX A321, on my system George' (since he is French) flies the G550 very nicely with no proposing and tracked an ILS like a mouse after cheese. I though for sure that I had the autopilot sorted out and was surprised when Mike stated that it still did not track straight

 The speeds that I use are 220 and two notches of flaps up to before glideslope intercept. Once the glideslope comes off the ceiling I slow down to 160 KIAS, lower the gear and drop the remaining flaps. Approach is made with full flaps. Over the gates I slow to landing speed about 145 KIAS. This airplane touches down like butter.

 I did widen the gear slightly, like you I got into a situation where I collapsed the main gear on landing. Hopefully this 2 foot widening of the gear should help out on landings.

 I think the fuel flow issue should be solved, however the fuel gauge is off on fuel flow. Since I am not an xml programmer I can not fix the gauge. I did include a third party fuel flow gauge and will play around with putting in in different locations until I find something that makes sense. The lighting bolt is deactivated on purpose. It leads to the FMS which may also be opened using SHIFT-5. However as it is part of a payware package, the FMS will not be distributed with the final aircraft. I have been looking into a few freeware FMS that I may replace it with, if anyone has any ideas on freeware FMS I am taking suggestions.

 

 
 

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-KenG