Four Engine Loss - No Crew Support!

[cflord]

Here we go again with my "sleeping crew"! I'll apologize up front to all concerned if my "Nagging" on this "Crew Coordination" issue offends anyone; however I believe what's right is right!
I was taking off at KTEX Telluride Regional Airport in Colorado, USA. Just after takeoff and gear "Up" #3 engine failed. Before I could make it back to the airport the other 3 engines failed and we bored into the ground! Again, neither the Copilot or the FE interacted with any helpful information. Even though the "Clipboard Crew Report" did not report "Carb Ice", I believe this is what caused the engine failures. The reason I say that is, I flew the flight again, this time with the "Carb Anti-Icing - ON" and had no engine failures on the second flight. I also noticed the "Carb Air Temp Gauges" to be reading right around "0" just before takeoff roll on the second flight. When I choose to have my Flight Engineer (FE) take control of his "Station, Super Chg, and Pressurization", I expect him/her to do their job! The "Carb Heat Levers & Carb Anti-Icing Switches" are both on the FE's Panel and are his/her responsibility, not the Pilot's. The fact that my FE did not do his/her job directly led to these engine failures. A2A claims that we have a "A LIVE ENGINEER - Flying w1ith a live engineer allows you to have a truer left seat experience. About 6 months of AI coding and testing has gone into breathing true life into a systems engineer who will handle the engineer’s panel properly in almost every possible scenario". This is just not happening. Also in the A2A Flight Manual, After Takeoff Checklist, it states for the FE to "Be prepared to feather an engine at command of Pilot". This is not happening either. If I have an engine failure, I find my Live FE will take the "Mixture Lever" to the "Cut Off" position and not Feather the engine/prop. The FE needs to shutdown the engine In Accordance With (IAW) the Flight Manual Engine Shutdown Procedure (In Flight). The Pilot should not have to "Push" in the "Feather Button". Again the Feather Button is on the FE's Panel and is his/her job, not the Pilot's! This is what the FE is responsible for In Flight when the Pilot commands an Engine Shutdown:

ENGINE FAILURE DURING FLIGHT - STOPPING THE ENGINE (FE Duties)
1. Retard throttle on dead engine.
2. Push dead engine feathering button.
3. Place mixture control in IDLE CUT-OFF.
4. Move engine fuel emergency shut-off valve to OFF.
5. Shut OFF auxiliary fuel pump.
6. Close cowl flaps.
7. Fuel, hydraulic, and engine oil shut-off valves CLOSED.
8. FUEL DISTRIBUTION — If engine fuel shut-off valves are incorporated, use any fuel tank as desired. If these valves are not installed and if the shutdown was due to fire, or if it is known that a
dangerous leak exists in the fuel line of the dead engine, turn the tank shut-off valve OFF and do not attempt to use the fuel in that tank. If no danger exists, use the fuel in the tank as desired to
operate the other engine.
9. Check the oil cooler flap control in AUTOMATIC.

A2A, if your not going to program the FE to do his/her job completely or to do the Engine Shutdown Procedure correctly; at least let us know on the Clipboard Crew Report what is causing our engines to fail so we can save the other engines if possible. Example: For a Carb Ice condition, is it really necessary to fail all four engines to make a lesson point?

Here are the givens for the flight should anyone want to repeat it:

FSX-SE / Windows 10
1. Day/Winter/Fair Weather - 1/16/2017/12:33 PM
2. KTEX Telluride Reg Airport (ORBX)
3. Altim 29.92/PA 9,100'/Temp -2 Deg C - 26 Deg F
4. Rwy 27 @ 7,110' / ILS Rwy 09, 109.3, hdg 090 (For return)

A2A L049 Connie
1. GW 65,868/50% Fuel & FE Controlling Station/Super Chg/Pressurization
2. Clipboard "Crew Report" - "Engines Appear to be Healthy"! & "No Carb Ice Reported"!
3. Maint Hanger - "Engine Condition "Excellent"!
4. Takeoff Power - 35" MAP/135 BMEP/2,540 RPM
5. Do not cheat and do the FE's job! When the engines start failing, pay attention to the lack of "Crew Coordination" and "Crew Callouts" on what's happening to the airplane. It will all be dumped in
your lap to handle. Now you do have the advantage of knowing what's coming.
6. No Pausing the situation allowed! Real time it!

Here are a series of pics showing the flight:

A2A L049 Connie ready for takeoff.


A2A L049 Connie Setup Conditions.


A2A L049 Connie Takeoff Power Settings - KTEX.


A2A L049 Connie Takeoff Power Settings - KTEX.


A2A L049 Connie Takeoff - Gear Up!


A2A L049 Connie - Start of Engine Failures - #3 Feathered (By Pilot) & #2 Starting to Fail..


A2A L049 Engine Gagues Showing #3 Feathered and #2 Starting to Fail.



A2A L049 Engine Failures Have Progressed to All 4!


A2A L049 Connie Crew Ready to Become Another Crew Breakdown Statistic!


The Last Thing Your Going to See! This is why we need Good Crew Coordination!


Keep the shiny side up and the dirty side down!

Ret SMSgt Cliff Lord - C-130 Flight Engineer & Mechanic

[Nfinger]

I experienced similar issues with Crew.

FO does not retract gear or flaps after t/o.
4 engine power loss occurred in cruise, managed to restart all engines after 5000 feet drop.

Not sure how to issue commands to crew either.

[CAPFlyer]

Cliff, can you please re-size your images to 1024x768 max? It's very hard to read your post when I'm having to scroll 2 screen widths.

Thanks!

Meanwhile, your issue. If you'll note on this very forum, there are several threads about the VFE not setting carb air properly. This is an issue being investigated and will be corrected once the cause can be determined. I personally thought we'd fixed this prior to release, but it's looking like it wasn't.

As for his reaction in the emergency - while I'm sure Scott will look into it, demanding it be "fixed" is not the way to go about it. I know you're a retired PFE, and we all respect that, but it's not a slight on you that a virtual program isn't as good as you were and has issues in odd cases that maybe weren't thought of during testing to see how he performed. As you said in your own post, the manual says "virtually". That doesn't mean every, so that he's having a problem with an edge emergency case (4 engine failure) falls into that "virtually" area. It doesn't mean it won't get improved, but it also doesn't mean you've been sold a bad bill of goods.

[cflord]

Cap, I think you miss understand what I'm trying to say. It's not a fringe emergency procedure at all that he is missing or not responding to. He simply does not respond to any unusual or emergency procedure at all. All this FE does is to do his normal job, as long as nothing goes wrong or an emergency arises. In an emergency he shuts down and does nothing. If the crew fails to inform the Pilot what's wrong with the airplane and we have no clear cut info on the Clipboard "Crew Report" what's wrong, then the Pilot is totally in the dark as to what's wrong with his airplane and it's hard for him to make a decision on what to do. It makes no difference how you do it; but we need some kind of information flow between the Flight Crew during an emergency, that's all I'm saying!
The Carb Heat issue (although it does need to be fixed) is not the issue here; but only the cause of the engine failures. The issue here is the total lack of "Crew Coordination"!
It also has nothing to do with me being a PFE, other than I know when someone is trying to pull the wool over my eyes and give me a song and dance answer. If you would like me to speak with Scott I can do that; but I am not going away until someone at A2A recognizes the fact, we are seriously flawed in the area of Crew Coordination during the handling of an Emergency Procedure (In this case - Engine Failures). I'm not here to get into an argument with you or anyone else, I just want the issue of Crew Coordination to be taken seriously.

Keep the shiny side up and the dirty side down!

Ret SMSgt Cliff Lord - C-130 Flight Engineer & Mechanic

[flapman]

Hi Cliff,

Out of curiosity, I just tried your scenario. To the best of my ability, the used the same conditions that you posted. I use FSX:A boxed.

I was not able to test how the vFE handled an engine failure scenario, as I encountered no engine failures during my takeoff attempt. The only thing I noticed was that my FE would not sync engine #4 RPM... everything else worked wonderfully.

I know you were dealing with a rapidly deteriorating situation, but I wonder if your repeated failures could also be caused by excessive RPM, instead of carb ice? The TCDS states that 2800RPM is the max for takeoff power in low blower, and is limited to 2 minutes total. Max continuous power is limited to 2400RPM, regardless of supercharger speed. In my takeoff I greatly exceeded those 2 minutes (7-8 min. by my guess), yet still couldn't trigger the engines to fail. After a successful landing, Mx hangar reported my engines in excellent condition.

From the TCDS:
Low impeller ratio 6.46:1
Maximum continuous:
(Sea level) 43.5 in.hg., 2400 rpm (2000 hp)
(Straight line manifold pressure variation with altitude to 4800 ft.)
41.5 in. hg., 2400 rpm (2000 hp)
Take-off (two minutes):
(Sea level) 46.0 in.hg., 2800 rpm (2200 hp)
(Straight line manifold pressure variation with altitude to 6300 ft.)
44.0 in.hg., 2800 rpm (2200 hp).
High impeller ratio 8.67:1
Maximum continuous:
(8000 ft.) 43.0 in.hg., 2400 rpm (1800 hp)
(Straight line manifold pressure variation with altitude to 15000 ft.)
40.0 in.hg., 2400 rpm (1800 hp).
Take-off (two minutes):
(10,600 ft.) 44.0 in.hg., 2600 rpm (1900 hp)
(Straight line manifold pressure variation with altitude to 16200 ft.)
42.0 in.hg., 2600 rpm (1900 hp).

[cflord]

flapman, the RPM was well within limits and I started losing engines immediately after takeoff, just after the gear was up. Well within the two minutes. I'm almost positive it was Carb Ice. I understand A2A is working on the FE and the Carb Ice issue as we speak. The lesson for now is to place the Carb Heat Levers to Hot for a little bit and then turn ON the Carb Anti-Icing Switches prior to takeoff. Any time you notice the Carb Air Temps drop to "0" or below during Cold Air Operations you need to do this. I have no clue why you could not duplicate the flight, It was surly an eye opener!

Keep the shiny side up and the dirty side down!

Ret SMSgt Cliff Lord - C-130 Flight Engineer & Mechanic!

[CAPFlyer]

I experienced similar issues with Crew.

FO does not retract gear or flaps after t/o.
4 engine power loss occurred in cruise, managed to restart all engines after 5000 feet drop.

Not sure how to issue commands to crew either.

There is no Virtual FO that does anything. He only gives advisories. There is nothing in the manual or product page that suggests otherwise. I honestly don't understand where these beliefs that the A2A crew has suddenly gone from the B377's level of VFE management to FS2Crew, but there's been ZERO claims by A2A to support these assumptions.

I'm sorry guys, I don't care what you "want" the crew to do. What they do is explained in the manual and in the product description. Beyond that, they don't do anything. This is not a 100% take care of everything crew. This is a "manage the mundane stuff" crew that helps you focus on flying the airplane.

[cflord]

With all due respect to A2A and it's staff, you did say the following two statements and we take A2A's word for gospel! No where in either of these statements does it say the FE will only preform
normal duties (except Carb Icing) at Standard Day Sea Level Conditions. You say the "FE only gives advisories"; well, what kind of advisories? If the answer is "Normal Only", then your two statements below do not have much meaning! The pilot has to "manage the flight and fly the airplane" regardless of whether we're operating under Normal or Emergency conditions.

“You can turn control over to your own virtual Flight Engineer; which will allow you the Captain to manage the flight and fly the airplane”. (From 12 Minute Video).

"A LIVE ENGINEER - Flying w1ith a live engineer allows you to have a truer left seat experience. About 6 months of AI coding and testing has gone into breathing true life into a systems engineer who will handle the engineer’s panel properly in almost every possible scenario". (From A2A Flight Manual).

I'm done and very frustrated at this point. The perception is, you simply don't care about us paying customers, who purchased the L049 as a way to learn more about multi-engine aircraft with complex systems and a functioning interacting crew. I guess if this is nothing more than a "Gaming Toy" we will never see any significant changes in the area of Crew Coordination (Normal & Emergency).

Again, sorry if I have hurt your delicate feelings; but I'm tired of the "Negative Attitude" and the political double talk and runaround! It's quite evident, I have more faith in your computer coders/programmers than you do. I'm pretty sure Scott did not heir any dummies and they (computer programmers) deserve a shot at proving me and others wrong.

Keep the shiny side up and the dirty side down!

Respectfully Ret SMSgt Cliff Lord - C-130 Flight Engineer & Mechanic

[Nfinger]

There is no Virtual FO that does anything. He only gives advisories. There is nothing in the manual or product page that suggests otherwise. I honestly don't understand where these beliefs that the A2A crew has suddenly gone from the B377's level of VFE management to FS2Crew, but there's been ZERO claims by A2A to support these assumptions.

I'm sorry guys, I don't care what you "want" the crew to do. What they do is explained in the manual and in the product description. Beyond that, they don't do anything. This is not a 100% take care of everything crew. This is a "manage the mundane stuff" crew that helps you focus on flying the airplane.

After watching the video and reading the manual under "Flight Operations" I was under the impression that the flight crew was doing what was listed under their function ie, Co-Pilot . Obviously I was mistaken.

[LostSoul]

The Last Thing Your Going to See! This is why we need Good Crew Coordination!


Keep the shiny side up and the dirty side down!

Ret SMSgt Cliff Lord - C-130 Flight Engineer & Mechanic

Is there ANY reason why you "glide" into the trees with 190 KIAS???

[CAPFlyer]

I'm done and very frustrated at this point. The perception is, you simply don't care about us paying customers, who purchased the L049 as a way to learn more about multi-engine aircraft with complex systems and a functioning interacting crew. I guess if this is nothing more than a "Gaming Toy" we will never see any significant changes in the area of Crew Coordination (Normal & Emergency).

Again, sorry if I have hurt your delicate feelings; but I'm tired of the "Negative Attitude" and the political double talk and runaround! It's quite evident, I have more faith in your computer coders/programmers than you do. I'm pretty sure Scott did not heir any dummies and they (computer programmers) deserve a shot at proving me and others wrong.

Cliff, I'm sorry you feel this way. I can only explain to you what the FE does, what he's programmed to do/not do, try to help you troubleshoot, and report anything beyond that on to the devs. As I've said before, there are some issues with the FE's operation, but much of what you're running into doesn't seem to be the FE's fault - it's something else going on with your computer and install that we can't figure out. You've now had 2 total engine failures that we've been 100% UNABLE to recreate. As such, because we can't recreate it, it's difficult to pass on information to Scott or Rob to be addressed. Those issues which we have figured out (like the Carb Heat issue) has been forwarded to be addressed in the next patch, but it's been less than a MONTH since release and they had a sizable backlog of items with their other products that needed to be addressed as well, which they've now released, so we should see focus turned to an L-049 patch.

I'm sorry that you took 2 qualified statements as absolutes and injected meaning into them that were not intended by A2A. It's not fair to them to demand (not ask - DEMAND) that they change their product because you made assumptions and interpretations that are not within their documentation.

Again, for 99% of all flights, the FE does his job correctly and completely and won't create any problems for you. If there is an engine fire, he'll secure the fuel systems, electrical systems, and the cowl flaps on an engine once you hit the feather button (you'd have to hit a button anyway to tell him to feather the engine, so why not just hit the button yourself?) and discharge the fire bottle (your job anyway). If you shutdown an engine due to him reporting an issue to you, he'll do the same again (again, your call if you shutdown the engine in the real world - FE doesn't just shutdown an engine without the Captain saying okay, so again - you'll need to hit keys to tell him to shut it down, why not let you hit the feather button or close the mixture yourself as the trigger instead as it's faster).

[CAPFlyer]

There is no Virtual FO that does anything. He only gives advisories. There is nothing in the manual or product page that suggests otherwise. I honestly don't understand where these beliefs that the A2A crew has suddenly gone from the B377's level of VFE management to FS2Crew, but there's been ZERO claims by A2A to support these assumptions.

I'm sorry guys, I don't care what you "want" the crew to do. What they do is explained in the manual and in the product description. Beyond that, they don't do anything. This is not a 100% take care of everything crew. This is a "manage the mundane stuff" crew that helps you focus on flying the airplane.

After watching the video and reading the manual under "Flight Operations" I was under the impression that the flight crew was doing what was listed under their function ie, Co-Pilot . Obviously I was mistaken.

Raising/lowering the gear and setting the flaps are called out by the Captain, it's not an automatic function done by the FO, even in the real world. As there are already default key commands for those functions, then it's counter-intuitive for A2A to have separate commands to tell the FO to do something you'd already accomplish with a single keystroke or joystick switch flip/button push. A Virtual FO in an airplane like this has no purpose. All his duties (setting frequencies, talking on the radio to ATC, moving the flaps and gear, etc.) are all things you either have to tell him to do, or are things he has to have situational awareness of (something a simple "AI" is incapable of). With FS2Crew, you tell the FO what to do. He's only triggered by button (preflight) or voice. The benefit of FS2Crew is that you can use your voice to tell him to do things. It's a lot harder with buttons and why FS2Crew "Button Control" was so limited and quickly replaced with "Voice Control." The PMDG DC-6 crew is the same - you have to hit buttons to tell them what to do, but they don't do anything on their own that the A2A crew doesn't. That's because you can't make something in FS "intelligent" to the point they can act as a truly independent crewmember. They can only do things that are independent of situational context. Anything beyond that requires your direction, and at that point, the question has to be - is it simpler for you to do it directly, or introduce unnecessary complexity to make it "seem" like you're telling a crew to do something.

[Scott - A2A]

Cliff,

You have to remember, AI will only do those things that the programmer codes. The brains of this crew are extensive. You don't just have an engineer, but a copilot, navigator, a flight attendant, and passengers. The key here is they are nowhere scripted - they actually observe and think. You don't have to tell them, for example, that you are climbing, cruising, descending, on final, etc. They know on their own. It would have been much easier to have the crew controlled linearly, in that the captain just barks orders about what is being done and what they should be doing. We didn't want that. We wanted a more natural experience.

However, if I understand, your main gripe here is the FE doesn't proactively feather the engines? We don't want the FE to immediately feather them. Maybe you want to keep it windmilling and try a restart. It could be annoying if the FE was proactive here and not allow you to try different things.

And since the feathering is just one button, we felt it was simple enough for you, the captain, to just do.

However, I suppose if many others want an FE to proactively feather the engines any time they quit, we could consider adding an option in the 2d panel so those, like myself, that prefer to handle this operation directly still can. But atm I'm not too sure this is worth adding another option. We have to think very carefully what we put in because 2d panel space is valuable, and there is always a balance between complexity and usability. In other words, we have to sometimes just make a call and make a feature a certain way. I, however, put it in my TO DO for our team to review for the future though.

Scott.

[Nfinger]

Raising/lowering the gear and setting the flaps are called out by the Captain, it's not an automatic function done by the FO, even in the real world. As there are already default key commands for those functions, then it's counter-intuitive for A2A to have separate commands to tell the FO to do something you'd already accomplish with a single keystroke or joystick switch flip/button push. A Virtual FO in an airplane like this has no purpose. All his duties (setting frequencies, talking on the radio to ATC, moving the flaps and gear, etc.) are all things you either have to tell him to do, or are things he has to have situational awareness of (something a simple "AI" is incapable of). With FS2Crew, you tell the FO what to do. He's only triggered by button (preflight) or voice. The benefit of FS2Crew is that you can use your voice to tell him to do things. It's a lot harder with buttons and why FS2Crew "Button Control" was so limited and quickly replaced with "Voice Control." The PMDG DC-6 crew is the same - you have to hit buttons to tell them what to do, but they don't do anything on their own that the A2A crew doesn't. That's because you can't make something in FS "intelligent" to the point they can act as a truly independent crewmember. They can only do things that are independent of situational context. Anything beyond that requires your direction, and at that point, the question has to be - is it simpler for you to do it directly, or introduce unnecessary complexity to make it "seem" like you're telling a crew to do something.

Not sure if you have Aerosoft A 319/320/321. They have implemented a true Crew environment where depending on IAS the FO raises/lowers gear and flaps automatically including checklists, which can be turned on or off. So it has AI build in and is magnificent. I was expecting something similar but misunderstood video and manual. It would be nice to specifically rule it out in the manual as advisories/suggestions and not actions actually done by the crew.

[Bazonka]

For me, the FE is doing exactly what I expected from him before I bought this beautiful bird...
some people see (and understand) what they want to see, not what it is in real life

I write here because I am just unable to keep my mouth shut when someone is raging against a member of my flight crew. He is doing his duty back there on the flight deck, regardless of having not the nice view as the pilots.

Keep up this awesome work!