Gaming FSX ... Oh Fsx...

[OrbitalConfusion]

That feeling when you think you have 11 lbs of fuel left in your wing tanks... Just enough to get you to the runway... Only to find out, some how this 11lbs means you are completely empty and your engines flame out. That feeling when you thought that 11 lbs in each tank would be just enough to land... Nope.

Last night this happened and I ended up in the drink. I keep kicking myself over this.. I was literally about 200 yards from the runway when I ran out of ALT and speed. I was flying the PMDG JS4100 doing a random flight from Johnston Atoll to Hawaii (JON-PHTO). I cruised at FL220 and as I ran low on fuel diverted. I was so close, so very close to making a safe landing.

Anyone had some crazy story like this happen to them in FSX or the like?

 

[Urwumpe]

11 lb... thats wetting the tank walls...

 

[Fabri91]

Once I performed a short haul flight on the a small passenger twinjet (Wilco E-Jet or Aerosoft Airbus X, I believe), and made a mistake during the fuel requirement "calculations": after touching down I had a single-digit amout of lbs remaining.

 

[astrosammy]

Well, in the beginning of my "serious" flight simming (marked by the purchase of the Jetstream 41 last summer) I planned a flight from Sogndal, Norway to the UK.
To enjoy the beautiful scenery and plane I was switching to external views quite often.
Then, as I was halfway to Bergen, a white trail was visible behind the wings. As I wasn't checking the fuel gauges,
I would have ended up swimming because of this fuel leak when just flying from cockpit view.

And on a flight from Gatwick to Amsterdam last week, flying with the PMDG 737-700, I yelled "What are you doing?"
at the autopilot when it turned right instead of flying the left 180° turn towards the runway visible on the ND.
Certainly don't want to hear this from a pilot in real life.

But there can be quite great storys. Like the first time I flew the transition from Lambourne to Heathrow's runway 27R (screenshot in my signature), great view of the city.

 

[Moach]

FSX does have a way of making fuel seem like something of a triviality until.... you're dry and dropping :uhh:

I once lost a 737 from this... not sure if it was the PMDG, as I don't recall if I had already acquired it back then... might have been the stock one, the real(er) deal makes a lot more noise when you're about to fly yourself into 'early retirement' :hmm:

I still blame that one on airline management! (damn, you can't get away with that in a simulator can you?...)


there was another time when I thought the fuel would do, but then discovered it wouldn't sometime along the second half of the trip... the engines quit just after I turned the nose off the runway... then you may imagine a pilot having to announce to the cabin:

"thanks for flying with our airline!... and we'd like to thank you all in advance for your help in getting our plane up to the terminal - you may take off your seatbelts now and start pushing"


join the :facepalm: club!

 

[Cras]

I used to run into fuel issues like this back when I first really got into FSX. I have since bought several different flight planning utilities since then that prevents me from flying into such things.

With that being said, the JS41 is quite the interesting plane to fly. Ugly as sin, loud, one of the most uncomfortable looking flight decks I have seen, but still, fun to fly. I love to fly it around Hawaii and Southern California.

 

[Evil_Onyx]

My most interesting close calls are as follows

Considering I run with random failures and realistic weather every flight.

1. I was Flying Dino Cattaneo's F-35 through the MACH Loop in north Wales when i got a master caution followed by a disturbing silence. I was doing 0.95 mach heading west. I made it to Llanbedr with about 10 knots to spare. An engine failure at low level gets scary.

2. Flying a Constellation on a Atlantic crossing from KJFK to EGLL. About 3 hours in I noted that I was burning more fuel than expected so I fiddled with the engine controls to get some more out of them. Two hours later I calculated that i will not make Europe and that i had to choose to fly south to the Azores, North to Iceland or go back to Greenland. The reason that i would not make Europe was because of a strong head winds (80knts!!!) meant that Greenland was an option. Iceland was just that little too far to call. So i headed south, 200 NM out from Terceira Lajes Field (LPLA) I shut down two engines to safe some fuel for landing. I made it to the runway but the two engines refused to restart, after the roll out as i terned off the runway both of the remaining engines died. I would not have made the other options by a long way.

3. Whilst flying the "Cork screw approach" mission i managed to put the Learjet in to a flat spin. I have yet to reproduce this in a controlled manner. I did not recover before slamming in to the salt lake at 8000 ft/min.

 

[OrbitalConfusion]

My most interesting close calls are as follows

3. Whilst flying the "Cork screw approach" mission i managed to put the Learjet in to a flat spin. I have yet to reproduce this in a controlled manner. I did not recover before slamming in to the salt lake at 8000 ft/min.

Oh god WIN. Wait, HOW did you do that?! I (like you) have tried to put a plane into a flat spin... Even linked up with an F-14 and pretended to be Mavrick for a night trying.

My experience is the PMDG 4100 is novice if even that... I purchased the 737ngx and have spent 95% of my time so far working with it. I have learned so much from it. Awesome,AWESOME plane.

Last nights escapade was me using johnston Atoll as a place to do some landing practice with the 4100. I made a total random decision to go to Hawaii on the downward leg and away I went. Yeah, I just looked at the map and "eye-balled" the trip. haha!

FSX has taught me so much. I still have so much more to learn. Cool thing is that it ties in with orbiter. Alot.

 

[OrbitalConfusion]

Just a quick update... So with full load/fuel I was 32lbs over weight. I attempted the JON-PHTO flight again. I was 20nm short of fuel so I cruised at service ceiling of fl250 and stayed there. I ran out of fuel and glided my way in. I don't know why, but this bugged me... I just had to do this over and have a better outcome. Atleast everyone and plane survived! Hahahah!

 

[Hielor]

FAA regulations require reserve fuel of 30 minutes for day VFR, 45 minutes for night VFR, or "enough to reach the alternate airport and 45 minutes thereafter" for IFR.

So, your flight plan violated federal regs and you've been reported to your local FSDO. Your certificate will be revoked shortly.

:tiphat:

 

[OrbitalConfusion]

FAA regulations require reserve fuel of 30 minutes for day VFR, 45 minutes for night VFR, or "enough to reach the alternate airport and 45 minutes thereafter" for IFR.

So, your flight plan violated federal regs and you've been reported to your local FSDO. Your certificate will be revoked shortly.

:tiphat:

It's been a while since I have laughed this hard. ThAnks man!

 

[PeriapsisPrograde]

In FSX I always manage to need twice the fuel that the in-game planner says. If it says I need 1,000 lbs, I'll load 2,200 to make sure I get there.

 

[Screamer7]

A flight from YSSY to KDFW on a Boeing 744 come near to violated federal regulations.

 

[Screamer7]

FSX and OOM's

I don't want to bums this thread, but It looks like FSX is on it's last legs.
What I mean about that is the frequently OOM's (out of memory) crashes that pop's up more frequently now.
I running FSX in a 64 bit OS environment and thought that this will never happened to me.
I experienced my first OOM the other night, flying the NGX between PANC (Payware) over KSFO (Payware) into KLAX (Payware). To add, I also run FTX Global and Vector with REX HD Direct and ASN.
I had my OOM turning onto the ILS at KLAX after flying for only 4.5 hours! You have to be mindful of VAS in FSX if your system is loaded with custom textures - it doesn't matter how good your PC is.
I think the VAS in FSX is 4000 megabyte, so anything above that and FSX crash.
And it looks like P3D does not address this problem because itself is a 32 bit app.
What we really need is a 64 bit simulator.
Like X-Plane 10?

 

[malisle]

I don't want to bums this thread, but It looks like FSX is on it's last legs.
What I mean about that is the frequently OOM's (out of memory) crashes that pop's up more frequently now.
I running FSX in a 64 bit OS environment and thought that this will never happened to me.
I experienced my first OOM the other night, flying the NGX between PANC (Payware) over KSFO (Payware) into KLAX (Payware). To add, I also run FTX Global and Vector with REX HD Direct and ASN.
I had my OOM turning onto the ILS at KLAX after flying for only 4.5 hours! You have to be mindful of VAS in FSX if your system is loaded with custom textures - it doesn't matter how good your PC is.
I think the VAS in FSX is 4000 megabyte, so anything above that and FSX crash.
And it looks like P3D does not address this problem because itself is a 32 bit app.
What we really need is a 64 bit simulator.
Like X-Plane 10?

EDIT: sorry, didn't see you mentioned P3D

You should take a look at Prepar3D. It is a continuation of FSX by Lockheed Martin, while maintaining compatibility with existing addons, and doing some improvements on the performance.

 

[Screamer7]

Yes, P3D is looking good, but it's the same old animal with a different hide.

Something has to be done to re-code the old FSX rendering engine that is also used in P3D. If not, the frustration levels of users, and ultimately scenery/airport developers is going to come to a head.

I am at that cross road now where I have to decide which road I am going to embark on. P3D would have been my obvious choice if a 64bit option was ever in the pipe line. Unfortunately that does not appear to be the case and as such I'll take the knock (in terms of apps not working cross platform), and move to X-Plane 10 64bit.

That is where I can become part of a larger community that will take X-Plane to new heights (this is only in regards to more developers making scenery and quality add-ons for X-Plane).
I'm really looking forward to a long haul flight with scenery/add-ons etc where I don't have to worry about an OOM towards the end of the flight!

This is not a contest to see which is better but merely stating a fact that something needs to be done to blow some new life into the old FSX rendering engine.

But that is my opinion and some may differ, please do as I want to hear other users opinion's.

Cheers

Johan.

*EDIT*

It's look like there is some light in the dark tunnel after all.
How long it would take and when, is every one's guess.


http://www.prepar3d.com/forum-5/?mingleforumaction=viewtopic&t=5094.0

 

[orb]

What I mean about that is the frequently OOM's (out of memory) crashes that pop's up more frequently now.

Is FSX's executable using Large Address Aware flag? If it isn't, it can only address 2 GiB of virtual memory. You can try enabling this flag if it isn't already set to get additional ~1.5-1.9 GiB usable by the game.

 

[IronRain]

I use this tool everytime I reïnstall FSX or after hardware upgrades.

 

[Thorsten]

Flightgear? OpenSource and free.

 

[Poscik]

Once I managed to land, apply reverse thrust and engines shut down due to lack of fuel