Is there a problem with the Flight Engineer ??

[Styggron]

Hi everyone,
Was watching this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhx_hch_kkA

The reviewer says there are things the FE should so when activated but for some reason the FE does not do things and when looking at the manual checklist, you have to do all those things even though the FE is on. This is to do with the start up procedure.

If you go to the part of the video where they go through starting the engines, this is where the reviewer is talking about all this.
This is at 28 minutes in the video and at 28m42s.

Later at 36m30s when the engines are started he is talking about the vacuum and what the checklist says.
He was saying no matter what, he cannot get vacuum to be 4inchec Hg. (37m02s) he says he has a feeling that if mercury was at 4 inches it might trigger what the FE is *supposed* to be doing.

Was just wondering if there are issues with the FE that still need to be ironed out ??

[CAPFlyer]

During the startup, he's giving some incorrect information not contained in any of the manuals. You idle the engines at 1000 RPM unless it the engines have warmed some and you need to quickly finish warming the engine. You also don't care what the CHT is. You're looking to warm the OIL to 40*C. He also primed the engine WAY early and did not give the time for the inertia starter to spin up. You are supposed to wait 15-20 seconds prior to engaging the starter (not 5), that's why #3 didn't want to start. Finally, the vacuum is supposed to be AT LEAST 4" HG.

The FE probably didn't engage and do his other stuff because he was idling too high and he interrupted the FE preflight when he turned the GPU on in the middle of it, something the FE will do for him if he hadn't touched it.

I don't have time to watch much more, but if he was "looking on the forum," he never asked or we could have helped him solve the issue before he filmed his video.

[Captain_Mac]

During the startup, he's giving some incorrect information not contained in any of the manuals. You idle the engines at 1000 RPM unless it the engines have warmed some and you need to quickly finish warming the engine. You also don't care what the CHT is. You're looking to warm the OIL to 40*C. He also primed the engine WAY early and did not give the time for the inertia starter to spin up. You are supposed to wait 15-20 seconds prior to engaging the starter (not 5), that's why #3 didn't want to start. Finally, the vacuum is supposed to be AT LEAST 4" HG.

The FE probably didn't engage and do his other stuff because he was idling too high and he interrupted the FE preflight when he turned the GPU on in the middle of it, something the FE will do for him if he hadn't touched it.

I don't have time to watch much more, but if he was "looking on the forum," he never asked or we could have helped him solve the issue before he filmed his video.

To be fair, I was "Looking on the forum" just not for that specific information; it was for a couple of other things I was looking for.

Regarding my mistakes...I got a comment on the video with the corrections; not sure if that was you or not; but I am appreciative. That being said...I replied to that comment noting that after receiving it I tried several different start ups, some where I turned the GPU on myself and some where I left it to the FE. I made sure the engines were idling at 1000 RPM and then waited. The FE is still not doing anything LOL. I laugh because I have no doubt it is something I am doing wrong, but I made sure I followed the advice given to me in the comments. I waited until the inertia starter had plenty of time to spin up.
The FE also changed his behavior while I was doing this. I gather that he is supposed to be adaptive. But the first few times that I went through the start up procedure he did all of his checks and pre-start flows and then told me that he was ready to go. After 3 or 4 times of going through the procedure from cold and dark he stopped telling me that and simply stopped when he reached "body heat on" which is what I think he said; then he does nothing. If I continue on and start the engines when he does this, he doesn't give me the "turning" call that he was before.
Maybe it's something I am doing wrong, but even when I get the procedure spot on, I'm still having issues...he simply doesn't do anything once the engines are running.
I went through the FO checks to see if that helped...no dice.
I waited and ensured the Oil Temp was high enough...no dice
Not sure what to do at this point. There is a lot going on in this airplane, so it's no surprise that I might make a few mistakes while trying to master it. Any additional tips or help would be greatly appreciated.
I have left some notes embedded in the video at those crucial points where I made those mistakes...they explain the right way to do it.

Captain_Mac

[Styggron]

During the startup, he's giving some incorrect information not contained in any of the manuals. You idle the engines at 1000 RPM unless it the engines have warmed some and you need to quickly finish warming the engine. You also don't care what the CHT is. You're looking to warm the OIL to 40*C. He also primed the engine WAY early and did not give the time for the inertia starter to spin up. You are supposed to wait 15-20 seconds prior to engaging the starter (not 5), that's why #3 didn't want to start. Finally, the vacuum is supposed to be AT LEAST 4" HG.

The FE probably didn't engage and do his other stuff because he was idling too high and he interrupted the FE preflight when he turned the GPU on in the middle of it, something the FE will do for him if he hadn't touched it.

I don't have time to watch much more, but if he was "looking on the forum," he never asked or we could have helped him solve the issue before he filmed his video.

Thank you for that. Understood.
Lets see what other people say.

He said you can't press a button to autostart either like you can other ones.

[UPDATE: The video creator, Captain Mac replied below. He was referring to the CTRL-E start method so I gather the A2A Panel start engines work as they should as people have said ]

[Piper_EEWL]

He said you can't press a button to autostart either like you can other ones.

But there is an autostart function. Shift+3 menu! Works just fine!

[Tomas Linnet]

No tutorial is better than the dude who makes it

[cbramkamp]

On my last two flights the FE didn't engaged the Superchargers until FL180, i then did it manual. On all other hops he works as expected.

[Captain_Mac]

During the startup, he's giving some incorrect information not contained in any of the manuals. You idle the engines at 1000 RPM unless it the engines have warmed some and you need to quickly finish warming the engine. You also don't care what the CHT is. You're looking to warm the OIL to 40*C. He also primed the engine WAY early and did not give the time for the inertia starter to spin up. You are supposed to wait 15-20 seconds prior to engaging the starter (not 5), that's why #3 didn't want to start. Finally, the vacuum is supposed to be AT LEAST 4" HG.

The FE probably didn't engage and do his other stuff because he was idling too high and he interrupted the FE preflight when he turned the GPU on in the middle of it, something the FE will do for him if he hadn't touched it.

I don't have time to watch much more, but if he was "looking on the forum," he never asked or we could have helped him solve the issue before he filmed his video.

Thank you for that. Understood.
Lets see what other people say.

He said you can't press a button to autostart either like you can other ones.

That was a bit of a mis-speak on my part actually. There is an auto start button on one of the control panels; I was referring to the default method of Shift+E, and that the aircraft was built by A2A to be run with a real world process. It was meant as a compliment.

As a follow up to my last post, (which still isn't showing up) and in response to the post from A2A; the flight Engineer Does not do the "Starting the Engines" Checklist or the "Engine and Accessories Ground Test" which is precisely what I was saying in the video. After a short discussion in the comments on YouTube it turns out that I was not wrong in what I was saying regarding the FE. I wasn't saying he did nothing, I was saying he didn't do all of the items on those checklists. At 28:49 in the video there is a pop up of the entire Engine start Checklist for the Engineer and I said "Now, look at the Engineer Stuff. He doesn't do any of this. Not until we get the engines running does he really do anything else". This was correct based on the last response I got in the comments on YouTube.

"The FE doesn't do any of those. This is not an interactive FE. Instead, he is a systems manager and just does his assigned jobs without prompting. Anything that involves changing the throttle or switches not on his panels (beside the 2 anti-icing switches on the copilot's side panel) is your responsibility. His job is mainly to take all those boring jobs (like syncing the props and managing the fuel) from you so you can focus on flying the plane. He also does some stuff in an emergency to help you deal with shutting down an engine, but you're still responsible for hitting the emergency fuel cutoff lever overhead." [CT]. (Emphasis Mine).

I was incorrect regarding a few things about the Engine start procedure and I have posted corrections in the video. However, the FE does not do all of the items on his checklist and that was the point I was making. It was never a complaint. I love the aircraft. However, there is confusion regarding what the FE does and does not do. The way the checklists are set up gives the impression that the FO and the FE are more involved in the operation of the aircraft and that was the observation I was making.

Captain_Mac

[CAPFlyer]

Hey Captain, yes that was me on YouTube. Glad I could be of assistance to you!

Also, I don't know if the manual addresses it explicitly, but when the FE says he's ready to shift the blowers, you reduce the throttles one at a time in the order - 3, 2, 4, 1 to ~25" MAP (i.e. "squared power") and the FE will shift as you reach 25". Normally, you'll need to continue reducing power slightly to reach 32" MAP (climb power) again.

[Styggron]

Thank you for the clarification Captain Mac.
Indeed this does not sound like an interactive FE to me.

Why would they not do the start up or ground accessories check list if it is under their column ? I don't understand.

The FE in the B377 is quite good. When I have auto FE on the B377 I do not TOUCH a single thing on the FE panel, they do everything. This is what I expect the auto FE to do.

This is why I am concerned about the FE on this one seems like it is missing out on doing things they should be doing.

Sounds confusing as Captain Mac stated. If there are things in the FE checklist, and I enable the auto FE, then I would have expected the FE to do the things on their checklist yes ?

I'm clearly missing something. This is not the kind of thing A2A "forget" to do it must all be for a specific reason and perhaps it is only that reason that is not clear so maybe the manual needs updating or there needs to be further clarification.

???

[dvm]

For what ever it's worth. I use a semi auto start method. I engage the FE and let him go through all his get ready stuff. When I am ready to start engines I select the engine with the engine select feature and then use my mag switch which is programed in FSUIPC. I just move the switch to the right from both and the starter engages and engine starts. So if you want to start the engines one at a time but don't want to go through all the steps priming etc this works great. I don't like auto start where all the engines start in sequence in less than 30 seconds. Starting one engine at a time and waiting till the oil pressure comes up and the engine stabilizes is realistic enough for me.

[Tomas Linnet]

As ground checks are done, well...on the ground, the Captain has all the time in the world to do the checks. After all he(you) are responsible to make sure all systems are fit for flight. As stated in the manual, he is not perfect. So for me this means I have to take care of all checks on the ground in order to make sure the aircraft is airworthy. I think Larry is doing a good job and I really like Betty coffee

[CAPFlyer]

Why would they not do the start up or ground accessories check list if it is under their column ? I don't understand.

Because we reprint the manual checklists and flows as published. It does not make sense to re-do them. We also didn't remove the FO's steps even though there's no level of "VFO" in the sim on either the L-049 or the B-377.

The FE in the B377 is quite good. When I have auto FE on the B377 I do not TOUCH a single thing on the FE panel, they do everything. This is what I expect the auto FE to do.

Actually, the VFE doesn't do those things. The VFE in the B-377 does not do the run-up or run-up checks for you, he doesn't set MAP (beyond using the turbo level to "hold" a set MAP), he doesn't set RPM (or synch them), and he certainly doesn't do anything with the mixture. Oh, he also doesn't calibrate the turbos. All that stuff is your job. On the Connie, he does everything he does on the B-377 plus he sync's the props, activates the anti-icing, and sets the mixture. So he does more on the Connie than on the B-377.

I'm sorry, but I think you're confusing A2A with another company here. A2A has never had an interactive FE in any of its simulations. The closest thing to an "interactive crew" is the B-17, but even then, what they do is even more limited than in the COTS simulations as the most they do is play some music for you. Everything else is cosmetic stuff.

[Styggron]

Why would they not do the start up or ground accessories check list if it is under their column ? I don't understand.

Because we reprint the manual checklists and flows as published. It does not make sense to re-do them. We also didn't remove the FO's steps even though there's no level of "VFO" in the sim on either the L-049 or the B-377.

The FE in the B377 is quite good. When I have auto FE on the B377 I do not TOUCH a single thing on the FE panel, they do everything. This is what I expect the auto FE to do.

Actually, the VFE doesn't do those things. The VFE in the B-377 does not do the run-up or run-up checks for you, he doesn't set MAP (beyond using the turbo level to "hold" a set MAP), he doesn't set RPM (or synch them), and he certainly doesn't do anything with the mixture. Oh, he also doesn't calibrate the turbos. All that stuff is your job. On the Connie, he does everything he does on the B-377 plus he sync's the props, activates the anti-icing, and sets the mixture. So he does more on the Connie than on the B-377.

I'm sorry, but I think you're confusing A2A with another company here. A2A has never had an interactive FE in any of its simulations. The closest thing to an "interactive crew" is the B-17, but even then, what they do is even more limited than in the COTS simulations as the most they do is play some music for you. Everything else is cosmetic stuff.

Thank you for that.
I will have to check because I am pretty sure I either saw and/or read that the FE is interactive.

If you have things on a printed checklist and then you have the ability to have FE turned on then it is completely reasonable to expect they would do the things in your list so whatever the reason, that alone is very confusing and does not make sense.

[CAPFlyer]

I'm sorry, but that is not reasonable because it assumes practices not followed by A2A or any other developer - ever. As A2A's own manual says, the checklists and flows are reproduced from real manuals, that means they simply copied the contents and duties from the real checklists. If you download one of the real L-049 or C-69 manuals, you'll find them almost exactly identical. A reasonable statement is that A2A would not re-write the checklists simply because they're afraid someone would make the assumption that the VFE does everything that is on the checklist.

I'm sorry you got confused, but that is the situation - the VFE does only what I've said he does on both the B-377 and L-049. No claims otherwise have ever been made by A2A, only assumptions by users after the fact.