Flight Engineer

[n454mw]

Hi, I haven't owned the Connie but for a couple of weeks and after searching the forums I have found a way to get the plane into the air and safely back onto the ground, however I'm having a problem with my FE. After a flight I pull back up to the gate, take control of the engineer's panel, and pull the mixture to idle/cutoff and shut off the mags for engines 1,2,3 individually, leave engine four running until the plane is unloaded, when I hear Betty say goodbye, then do the same for engine four. Then I give the FE back control of his panel, I hear him say "shutting down systems" and then it takes him any where from 3-5 minutes to do anything. Finally I'll hear him say "GPU is on" and then nothing. My question is, what do I need to do at that point to get him to go ahead and finish shutting down the plane, will he shut the battery switch off or is that my responsibility, ditto for the GPU?

Thanks
Mark

[Gypsy Baron]

Hi Mark,
I would just leave the VFE in control as you go about shutting down the engines. That said, I too have
noticed a long 'delay' during his shutdown activities. As long as you have the latest update you can take
control of the mixtures. The initial release had them locked out.

I wasn't sure that it might have been caused by my 'locking him out' from control of the RPM as I
am currently finishing a group of Lua scripts that will control the MP and RPM from take off on
up through climb and cruise. I also coded an 'idle' setting that I use for descent. anyhow, to prevent
the VFE from trying to sync props I had to intervene to keep him away from the rpm controls as
my lua scripts set and hold the RPM and sync.

I've been testing and flying with and without the VFE and noticed that after I had pulled the mixtures to
cutoff and then started shutting down other things like the mags, lights, etc it did take him some time to
get around to the tasks like the pressurization panel switches, fuel pump and generators.

My procedure is to shut a;; engines down and fire up the gpu and start the unloading operation.

Paul

[n454mw]

Thanks for the reply Gypsy, that worked like a charm. I would be interested in your LUA scripts if you feel like sharing.

[Gypsy Baron]

Thanks for the reply Gypsy, that worked like a charm. I would be interested in your LUA scripts if you feel like sharing.

I am still putting the finishing touches on them and writing the 'read me' file. I probably
will be able to finish up within the next week and a half. I'm currently traveling until
Tuesday evening so won't get much done until after that date.

I'll try to post a 'pre-view' video or two aand then a download link.

Paul

[Warbirds]

This sounds interesting.