Monday, July 23, 2012

Scant progress to report

Who could resist reading a posting with such a great title? You, my fellow anoraks.

My day job is seriously interfering with my hobby. For example, I'm off to Europe again this week - somewhat of an unscheduled but necessary trip. Thus progress has been slow and mainly in the planning area.

Given the lead time for their gear, I've ordered up another Flight Illusion digital clock for the first officer (I wasn't going to do it but couldn't resist - an empty space in the MIP is a hole in my soul) and a brake pressure gauge (critical for landing and plugging another hole in the MIP).

Also noticed their new radio magnetic indicator with DME. Looks very nice and have enquired if it will fit the MIP or if customization is required:

Also asked if there are any plans for a combined airspeed and altitude gauge. If so, I'll be selling off the separate current ones I already have.

What else? Had a visitor over last Saturday who wanted to fly the sim. I ran Ken through some basics (he has never flown a 737 or a sim like it) and he got it off the ground no problem. Switched to the autopilot while climbing out of KSFO. All going well. Then while we were looking down at the PFD, all hell broke loose! Clearly something had gone wrong and the autopilot couldn't control the flight. I disengaged it while trying to figure out what was wrong. Ken did a remarkable job for a rookie, getting back to straight and level flight after a couple of wild pitches up and down and some rolls that would have the passengers barfing in a heartbeat.

Checking out the TQ, the trim indicator was pegged out at full nose up.... I thought I'd fixed this problem with some SIOC script changes but clearly not. We didn't have time to reset and try again so will need to spend more time trying to debug this damn piece of junk! The real annoying thing is that when Ken expressed an interest in having a go, I ran through a test flight before he came over and everything worked flawlessly. Murphy's law I guess.

And talking of Murphy, check this video out. Wonder if  the captain is still flying for the airforce? Fine job of setting that sucker down though...