Props locked in reverse?

[elparker]

I haven't used it lately but I remember distinctly being able to pump oil from the engine to the oil reservoir. Emptying a dead engine's oil tank never occurred to me because if I had a dead engine I would land at the nearest airport. Of course that isn't always possible if you are over the ocean which I haven't gotten around to doing yet.

I am using FSX - SP2 and B377 - SP1 with SP2 hotfix.

I think that sometimes developers outsmart themselves by inadvertently rolling back some of the things that were already "fixed."

[whiic]

The oil system now works as it should. It was actually in error in the first release.

Nice timing. I just noticed myself that it's intentional: if you put the switch down to AFT, the mouse-on-tooltip tells quite clearly that it's a separate pump further to the back.

There is NO provision for pumping oil FROM and engine back to the reservoir.

If there's no provision to pump oil back to reservoir, there must be either
A) a possibility to dump oil out of the airplane, or
B) to stop the oil pump from working in mid-flight.

Why? Because flight engineer Garcia (under order from captain Ogg) killed the engine by cutting the oil to engine #1 on Pan Am Flight 6.
http://propspistonsandoldairliners.blog ... light.html

It took just 2 minutes to freeze the bearings so it clearly wasn't "flip a circuit breaker to prevent automatic refill" solution (or was that automatic refill in Accusim just a live engineer feature and not automated in the real thing?). Oil had to actually be drained from the tank either to central fuel tank, or dumped to the sea.

I haven't used it lately but I remember distinctly being able to pump oil from the engine to the oil reservoir. Emptying a dead engine's oil tank never occurred to me because if I had a dead engine I would land at the nearest airport. Of course that isn't always possible if you are over the ocean which I haven't gotten around to doing yet.

I am using FSX - SP2 and B377 - SP1 with SP2 hotfix.

You're not running Captain of the Ship (Accusim "V2.0") or Captain of the Ship SP1 (Accusim "V2.1"). You're running Accusim 1.2. I also remember the AFT pumped oil backwards before CotS. But like Gypsy Baron said, it's a feature, not a bug.

Still the question about how Garcia did it (in real life) remains.

[elparker]

So I figured, what the heck, I'll try my copy of the airplane and see what happens. At 100% oil each tank contains 23.8 gallons of oil. I activated the FWD switch for Tank #1 and ran it up to 25.8 gallons (it would take more). I activated the AFT switch and Tank #1 began to empty but only back to 23.8 gallons. As I did this I noticed the Supply Tank was emptying on FWD and filling on AFT. The Supply tank would not go over "full" and the engine tanks would not reduce below 23.8.

I then went into the Change Aircraft Fuel/Load menu in FSX and modified the oil tank settings for one of the oil tanks to zero. As I expected it had no effect, the airplane only pays attention to the Shift-4 menu and could only be filled, not emptied.

My conclusion is: why bother messing with it? The oil tanks need enough to keep the engines running. And if you run out of oil, you are SOL anyway.

[kilmer]

I see it has been a while since this last post, but I wanted to corroborate Blackhawks' difficulties. I, too, can get the propellers into reverse using F2, and out to the idle detent using F3, but after that, nothing will make the plane throttle up. I just sit on the runway idling.

I have installed the update. I don't remember if the throttles worked properly before I did that, but they certainly do not now. I have a Windows 7 machine with more than enough power to run this, or any, airplane.

[elparker]

I flew again yesterday making touch and go's at MSP. When I made the full stop I went into reverse to slow the aircraft down (which didn't take long since my Vref speed was only 102 KIAS.

I use a toggle switch on my Saitek AV8R joystick to engage reverse and a different toggle switch to idle the throttles. This is the same scenario as using F2 to reverse and F1 to idle the throttles. As soon as I got the airplane to normal taxi speed (don't stop or it will back up) I advanced the throttles using the joystick throttle to continue onto the taxiway and it worked normally.

I have posted here before, the only time I had a problem with reverse was when I used it while sitting on the ramp. There seems to be a parameter of forward speed that must be satisfied before the throttles will come out of reverse so I make it a practice of not allowing the airplane to come to a complete stop on landing after using reverse pitch. But even so, advancing the throttles works.

Oh yes, and the reverse throttles must be idled before they will come out of reverse. In other words, if you reverse you can't advance to forward pitch straightaway. You must go back to idle before you can go forward.

[kilmer]

That may be it, that I need to throttle up from the idle detent before the aircraft comes to a full stop. The last time I tried using reverse pitch, the plane had stopped and had actually started backing up before I could get out of reverse. I had expected F1 to pop the throttles back to idle like it does with other aircraft, but it did not. (It was comical listening to the Captain making lame excuses to the passengers for the backing aircraft.) I stepped on the brakes to stop the plane and then the struggle with the throttles began. I shall try not using so much reverse (you don't have to go all the way back to get significant slowing down) and getting out of it back to idle with F3, and throttling up a bit, all before the plane stops. Thanks.

[blackhawks]

Thanks guys for continuing to look into this. kilmer, please let me know if the forward speed makes a difference on your machine. It doesn't appear to change my results. Reverse worked properly before the 1.1 update on my setup, that is the mildly frustrating part. I've gotten used to the parking brake trick, but still at least try the proper way on any landings that need the reversers.
On a side note are you able to raise and lower the tail? I do admit I have to go back and read the manual again to see if I'm meeting all the requirements for it to work. Simply pressing the "tail" option in the F3 menu does nothing at the moment on my setup. Thanks again.

[seawing]

Just wanted to add one more pilot to the list of people having problems to get the props out of reverse after landing. And ONLY after landing! The plane did a nice power-back to leave the parking position. But after being airborne for an hour or two, the props lock in reverse/idle after landing. I have not yet tried the parking brake work-around, as I just today ended my first series of COTS1.1 flights.
It is a somewhat nasty bug, especially if you "order a tow truck" to slew you of the runway, that cancels the career mode. Will try the parking brake next time ...

BTW, blackhawks, the plane should be completely shut down to lower the tail

Seawing

[blackhawks]

Thanks seawing! I had tried everything. I was thinking accusim and hydraulics, no it's the stupid control lock that needs to be on for it to work.

EDIT: Just a footnote. I recently purchased a new computer and everything is now working fine on the 377 both before and after the update. I assume (as in earlier posts) the specs on my old machine were just too low, and that was the problem. New rig: i7 2.3Ghz (8Gb ram) / Nvidia 660M (2gb ram) and it is as smooth as can be. I'm even landing better now that she doesn't stutter.

[Tailspin45]

I know this is an old thread, but after flying the B-17 all over the world I left the Air Crops and got a job flying the 377 for Pan American.

Great airplane in every way...except for the reverser issue. Same problem as described here: props won't come out of reverse,

Tried Paul's .lua files with FSUIPC. Props won't come out of reverse,

Tried making sure I hadn't come to a stop before raising throttles out of reserse. Props won't come out of reverse,

Tried just using F1, F2, and F3. Props won't come out of reverse,

Tried using external view. Props won't come out of reverse,

Tried using parking brake work around. Props move out of reverse zone (physical throttles just above idle), but as soon as parking brake is released they snap back into full reverse.

Any new ideas on this, anyone?



i7 2.8Ghz, 8Gb RAM, Radeon HD 5700
Win7 64-bit, FSX Gold, COTS v1.1, FSUIPC 4.937 paid
Saitek panels, yoke with throttles, add-on USB quadrant.