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FiFLi add-on - First officer and Flight attendant for PSX - beta 0.77

Started by vito, Sun, 4 Jan 2015 19:22

vito

I am assuming that FiFLi played sound for "Runway entry procedure". Then it is correct to assume that everything is configured correctly for this phase and error is somewhere after take off. I must check your scenario at home with FO "inactive". If you try the same scenario with FO active, are you getting FiFli entering climb phase ?

best regards

vito

RogerH

Hi Vito,

With FO inactive I'm not sure which sound you mean - a FA announcement?

But the state as recorded on the FiFli window changes to Runway Entry Procedure.

I'll try with the FO active and see if there's a difference - many thanks for helping me on this :-)

vito

QuoteWith FO inactive I'm not sure which sound you mean - a FA announcement?

No, I meant the sound of FO. As I can remember FO turns off taxi lights (if Captain forgets). Main trigger for climb mode is "gear is up", certain altitude and of course seat belts signs to auto or off ...

QuoteDo you have a list of FO actions during and after Runway Entry Procedure that you can let me have?

Use normal Procedures from Aerowinx Operations Manual starting from page 560 !

best regards

vito

vito

Hi Roger,

So far I found that problem arises if you start FiFLi, uncheck FO active ant then you connect to PSX. Try first connect to PSX ant after that uncheck FO active. I have tried basic scenario on the ground and if you do right steps FIFli (first connect FiFLi and then uncheck FO active button) works ok (detecting phases).

In program FO thread probably contains some variable that influences other threads so FiFLi isn't detecting right flight phase. I will check this in next days for solution.

Thanks for hint :-). and sorry for inconvenience

Here is revised version for testing:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/x7xc080iq0tp6ll/FiFLi.jar?dl=0

best regards
vito



vito

Here is beta 0.77

What is new:

Fixed bug: when deselecting FO Active button, FiFLi would not detect current flight phase.
Fixed bug: when starting on the ground doors would not close.

Full package is here:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/6dvaovmoy2qt9bc/FiFLi.zip?dl=0

and only FiFLi jar:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/x7xc080iq0tp6ll/FiFLi.jar?dl=0

Best regards

vito

RogerH

Thanks Vito will give it a try over the next couple of days. Fast work, btw!

beat578

FiFli and BACARS
Hi Vito. I am still amazed about the package you created. It's like "FS2Crew" for PSX but for free, amazing! I was wondering if it would be possible to "catch" a variable from BACARS if both are installed. Because in BACARS you can enter the "Ready for boarding" flag in your ACARS. I don't know if it's technically possible, but It would be amazing if that would send a Signal to FiFly to start the boarding process as well. Not that turning the Know would be a Problem, but the immersion would be great if you could link those two great addons.

Stay save and have a great weekend.
Kind Regards
Beat LSZH

vito

Thank you on your kind words !

Unfortunately the answer is: no. At first look it looks simple task but ... I was thinking about it and it would require for me to explore BACARS and find what are requirements, then to implement more code to satisfy optional use of BACARS and at the end BACARS can change its internal logic, then again FIFLi  would not work as intended. Also, I am not using BACARS, that is another reason so it would require for me more time to explore it (I am not saying that sometime in the future I wont do it). But you can, in the mean time, accomplish your goal simply by pressing FLT DK DOOR switch in either direction to tell FIFLi to start boarding process and again to stop it (when BACARS sends signal: ready for boarding) as this looks to me like you are the Captain and you are the on who tells your attendants that boarding process can start :-).

Best regards

vito

Avi

Hi Vito,

First of all, nice add-on. I must admit that when you first published it I asked myself if now an add-on does the preparation tasks (even if partially), what do I do ( ;) ) and didn't try it at the time.
Now I used FiFLi (0.77) for the first time in my flights in the past week and had few problems. To be sure I'm not wrong, I did few tests today using only FiFLi as an add-on to be sure no other add-on was responsible. I also have few remarks and recommendations and I'll start with this.

The first thing I wondered about was the use of the FLT DK DOOR selector as a mean to tell FiFLi about changing phases. Why not to use the IRS selectors (when any one of them is in NAV or ALIGN) as a signal to start passenger boarding and to the FO (if active) to start his tasks. The IRS selectors (with aircraft on ground and engine out) is the way on the real aircraft to change flight phase (in the CMC) from Power On (in your case "Parked at the gate") to Pre Flight.

I would have used the Beacon light switch as a mean to end boarding (if not ended), to end FO activities and for the FO to do the before start tasks. There is a problem with this suggestion because Beacon light should switch ON as part of the Before Start checklist while we need the boarding to end before we do the Final Cockpit Preparation but still I think it is better than the door selector (and solve the freighter problem).

I also have used the Strobe light switch as a mean of runway entry procedure and let the FO to switch ON (among other things) the landing lights (I don't understand why only one pair of landing lights needs to be ON for this).

I did a test to see if FiFLi identifies correctly flight phases (when airborne) when started. I loaded a flight in cruise, started FiFLi and it was ok. I close it, loaded a flight in descent, started FiFLi and it wasn't (It showed climb & cruise). I guess it happened because gear was up and the aircraft was below 10,000 feet.

These is a simple way to know the flight phase in PSX. There is a variable (Qs392, FmcVnavX) where its 4th char tells you which VNAV phase is active: 0=CLB, 1=CRZ and 2=DES. Now you can identify the correct phase regardless of the altitude.

Now for some problems I had (only when FO was active):

1. When the FO sets the RTPs it messes up the Instructor Voice-ATC page. Too many things happened to me during my tests. It changed (not everything and not all the time) Origin, Destination, initial FL, flight number, the probability of Hold and Go Around from Never to Unlikely etc. It always unchecked the LNAV CRZ and LNAV ARR checkboxes. While the Call sign remained El Al, when I made first contact with the ground, it called me Aeroflot (the 1st in the list) or Emirates (the next to El Al). It took me time to understand it called me (I understood it by the use of the correct flight number). I didn't do another test to check it but this mess up also happened to me when I was airborne. It happened around the transition from Climb & Cruise to Descent & Approach (about 250nm from destination).
In some cases Origin and Dest changed to bbbb. It took me some time to understand it happened because there was no route in the FMC RTE page (bbbb is 4 boxes) but that made me understand you copy things to the Voice-ATC page and something is wrong here.

2. The next problem happened (on and off) after the FO spoke with the purser. Not always he switched the audio CAB switch to other switch (VHF R or something else). The result was annoying dial tone until I switched it "OFF".

3. The last problem happened during engine start. I used El AL configuration which doesn't have Auto Start. That means I first pulled out the start switch and when the time came, set fuel control switch to RUN. The FO called "starting engine X". I don't have a problem with that but I noticed the white light in the start switch extinguished. Do you send to PSX, for example, EngStartSw1 (Qh267) = 1? If yes, this is wrong because you reset all other bits (especially the Contact Close bit) to 0. You should use the logic OR operator on the variable only to set the 1st bit to 1 (even if it is already set).

That's it for now,
Cheers,
Avi Adin
LLBG

vito

Hi Avi,

Glad that it works :-) Thanks on your extensive analysis. Some problems I am aware, but I need to catch time (which I don't have now)  to solve them. Some solutions are chosen (at the time) because simply in my knowledge I didn't know better solutions at the time :-) and some can be changed to better (definitely) - like you suggested it. Thanks again and I will definitely look to solve (at least) some problems you mentioned.

Best regards!

Vito