Real life meets persistent airplane?

[tttocs]

I'm hoping others have run into this problem and have some solutions.

Night before last, my 182 flight was interrupted by events around the house, and I had to "End Flight" at about 10,500' over NW Arizona, shut down FSX and take care of other business. Not uncommon for me (and I expect not uncommon for many of you) but I'm not sure my 182 understood. The following day (yesterday evening) I came home, hit cold and dark, fired up the 182 and... no wait, I didn't. I suddenly could not realistically start the plane no matter what I tried. First time that I've had any struggle at all. In frustration, I finally used the autostart button so I could at least get some flight time in. I am not now, nor never had I been a "Ctrl-E" kinda guy so it kinda burned my soul. (And, BTW, the flight got interrupted yet again, so I've probably got things really messed up now.)

Is this a common problem for accu-simmed planes? I have the 172 as well, but haven't flown it that much (great plane, I'm just not that fond of fixed gear, fixed pitched prop planes) so I never completely worked out some of the kinks in my setup. Based on my first few days with the 182, I think I'm going to fly it a lot, so I'd like to get a few more things figured out.

Thanks,

Scott

[Great Ozzie]

Scott,

My "end flight now" interruptions I have been usually been able to turn into a "oops... engine failure", precisely because I do not like to shutdown without a "proper" shutdown.

I cannot remember doing what you have done recently (except maybe with the B-17 some weeks ago?) in which case I'm thinking that I loaded the previous .dat file.

-Rob

[Lewis - A2A]

Hello Scott,

no this would not cause any issue. I regularly do this as does the team during development when we are in and out the sim so often during development/testing etc. In fact mentioning that your 182 started with the auto start features means that the aircraft was in fact just fine as this system simply runs through the start sequence, so any issues it also wouldn't work.

I would suggest in this case it is likely pilot error of some kind, maybe not changing procedure for environment, engine flood etc?

thanks,
Lewis

[lonewulf47]

Hmm, I just tried what you described. However I did a complete walkaround before I fired up - and be it just to make sure that the fuel selector is set to both.... Thereafter I had no problem starting the engine the normal way.

[Molly - A2A]

Yep, I'd say it was something simple missed, like the fuel selector (I went through the exact same situation myself, before going back through the checklist and realizing that clicking "Cold and Dark" sets the fuel selector to off.)

Like Lewis said, the aircraft (and Accu-sim itself) is completely capable of dealing with stopping flights in progress. In fact you should even be able to load a saved flight in process without too much trouble, since Accu-sim now even saves previous variables like throttle/prop/mixture positions exactly how you left them when closing FSX.

[tttocs]

Rob, next time I'll try to have a sim emergency to match my household "emergency" <cough> and see what happens.

Lewis, thanks for the information. Good to know this shouldn't have an impact. I assumed I couldn't be the only one doing this sort of thing, but as my experience with accu-sim is limited, I'm still finding my way and learning what it does and does not do.

Oskar, given Lewis' comments and yours (and I see molleh's as well now), I'm going to proceed under the assumption that you're absolutely correct and try to figure out exactly where the pilot in question erred. I did do a full pre-flight/walkaround, working from the checklists and all appeared to be well. Fuel selector was definitely on both (not that I haven't done that before) and priming done just as I have on previous flights. I'm guessing that I must've flooded the engine, but I'm not sure how/why.

Still learning the way all of this works, but enjoying it. Thanks all for taking the time to respond.

Scott

[Lewis - A2A]

Hey Scott,

if you have issues again with this particular area of starting check the maintenance hanger in case the engine is flooded as it will be noted in there.

thanks,
Lewis - A2A

[tttocs]

Lewis, I've gotten in the habit of using the maintenance hangar as part of my before-flight prep, but I have to remember that it's a diagnostic tool for problems like this as well. Will definitely have a look if I have starting issues again.

Thanks for the followup,

Scott