Interesting stuff Xplanes will do

[Daddy O]

So while flying my Malibu back to KSQL on the Sunday night beta, the engine cut out suddenly. Hydraulics 1 & 2 failure, the engine would not restart, not even attempt to turn over. So I declared an emergency, landed at Moffett, even managed to roll onto a taxiway so the F5 landing behind me didn't run me over. Near as I can tell, Xplanes removed my prop. But when I came to a full stop the plane pitched back and sat with the nose in the air...apparently Xplane also removed the engine.

I'd broken a lot of airplanes on Xplanes, even ripped the engines off of an F22 doing the canyon run, but never had it rip out the entire engine during level flight.


Interesting side note: Didja know that Moffett field has several very large hangars for blimps? They must be stock with Xplanes, prolly added when the Hindenburg was added to the stable in version 8.

[Keith Smith]

I didn't know it recalculated the CG with the engine missing. I'm not sure what weight it uses for that component...very interesting. Other than an engine failure, did the pitch change quite a bit when the failure occurred?

My CG changes during flight in the Lancair (r/w) as I transfer fuel from the wings to the header tank, and I have to re-trim accordingly. If there was enough of a change to make the plane tip on its tail after landing, I have to think the in-flight characteristics would've changed quite a bit too, no?

[Daddy O]

I did not notice the pitch change at first because I had not trimmed the plane yet after my climb to altitude, but I did notice that the plane was a whole lot lighter and lacked inertia.

Kind of interesting, this was the first time I had to declare an emergency while under IFR flight. The biggest difference from VFR is that I did not have to change frequency because I was already talking to departure. Just dialed in 7700, managed my glideslope, touched down on the skid patch like usual.

[Daddy O]

So this last Wed I was doing cash 'n dashes at Hawthorne. Kieth asked me to extend my upwind a little to let another plane into the pattern. I'm flyhing in clear blue skies when all of a sudden - BAM! - I'm in hardball IFR conditions. I can't see anything but grey out of my two external visuals.

So I go to instruments, make my crosswind and baseleg turns, and when I got within a few miles of the airport the clouds vanish like magic. Apparently xplane's demarkation line for the next weather center is about 4 miles west of Hawthorne. A little while later that same weather rolled into Hawthorne and flying got interesting. I got to make a nice VOR approach at Camarillo with an 800' ceiling.

PS: Camarillo was interesting because I had forgotten the extra detail I had put into that map. It was a lot of fun trying to navigate thru the GA hangers that are clustered at the east end of the airport before I found one that was open for me to pull into. For those of you flying FSeconomy, you can use these maps to start at a specific location on the airport, and at the end of your trip return to that same hangar or tiedown.

[Brian Ratledge]

I departed KAJO bound for KHHR expecting the 800 OVC. Never happened for me and i manually updated the weather about 9 miles east of KHHR. Go figure.

[Keith Smith]

Xplane doesn't update weather when you cross a specific point on the map. It updates the weather at a specific point in time (the frequency of which you can control in the weather panel).

My understanding is that it looks at several nearby weather sources, interpolates them based on your current position, and THAT becomes THE weather until the next update time is reached. For example, if LAX was overcast at 1000 and LGB was overcast at 3000, if you were half way between the two just as xplane's "time to update the weather" timer goes off, then you'll get overcast at 2000. It will REMAIN at overcast 2000 until the next update, regardless of where you fly after that.

Once the timer goes off again, it will look at your position and repeat the process.

XP10 will completely change this process as it will allow multiple weather systems to be loaded simultaneously. This will allow for clear skies to the left and dodgy skies on the right. Awesome.

[Daddy O]

Based on what happened during that flight, that is not what happened. Blue skies, then suddenly hardball IFR like I had run into an invisible wall. When I reversed course and passed back over that line I was back in blue skies, no clouds. The clouds did roll in a little while later.

It was the oddest thing. initially I thought there was a problem with the projector, but I had the same thing out my side monitor as well. My weather is set to update every 60 seconds.

[Alex Stjepanovic]

initially I thought there was a problem with the projector

Maybe it was your projector that died for a second, leaving a white wall!

Seriously, hope you fix it.

[arb65912]

Based on what happened during that flight, that is not what happened. Blue skies, then suddenly hardball IFR like I had run into an invisible wall. When I reversed course and passed back over that line I was back in blue skies, no clouds. The clouds did roll in a little while later.

It was the oddest thing. initially I thought there was a problem with the projector, but I had the same thing out my side monitor as well. My weather is set to update every 60 seconds.

I have never heard of THAT high update weather time.
Does it affect the performance in noticeable way?
I mean can you tell when the weather is being updated?

Andrzej

[Daddy O]

I have had no resource problems with that weather refresh rate, even with my projector resolution set to 1920x1080. Unfortunately real weather is tied to updates from R/W weather stations that only report in every fifteen minutes or so, so when there is an update Xplane will still halt for a split second. It would be nice if the weather reported real-time so it flowed better. Weather is supposed to improve in XP10, but the reporting stations behind it will still be on the same update schedule.

Like I said, it was not the projector. I have a side view that was also greyed out during the same time. I woulda switched my instrument panel to an external view to see if it was also in the clouds, but I was kinda using it to navigate.