747 fmc problem

[YUHAO WANG]

Dear gentlemen, please forgive me for using the poor English translation from Google. Excuse me, why is there no SAT, ACMS, CMC function options in fmc?
Sincerely request answers
thank you very much

[John H Watson]

Basically, the CMC is too complex to model. There is a PSX "add-on" for the CMC, but it's highly simplified. Only aircraft designers would have any idea how the CMC interacts with the airplane. The sim would be 1000 times more complex than it already is.  Instead of taking 6 or 7 years to develop PSX, it would take 6000 years. Are you willing to wait... and pay 1000 times as much? 

There are sims which pretend to model the CMC, but who could say (even designers) what would happen during a CMC Ground Test if a circuit breaker was pulled during that test at a specific time? At what time during a test would the CMC test a specific component of the system?  Maintenance engineers certainly don't know (and they wouldn't test it in real life in case it damaged the aircraft). I did see one FSX 744 sim which modelled basic CMC Maintenance Pages, but the designers didn't even know that they had modelled a faulty aircraft!

Also, as far as I know, Mr. Heinlin doesn't have any maintenance engineers on his team now, so it would be impossible to get detailed data on CMC operations. Satcom would be nice, but you would need someone willing to mess around with a serviceable aircraft to get enough information on the system. This is stupid and may cause flight delays.

[YUHAO WANG]

Thank you very much for your answer.
thank you very much

[Jeroen Hoppenbrouwers]

Hm hm hm

Hm hm hm

But I wonder who would actually like to have a <SAT prompt? What to do with it? Just as your VHF radios, they are not really useful for simming.

I have been playing for years with the idea to attach my real-life Iridium boxes to PSX and integrate the complete aircraft interface exactly as in the real aircraft, for demonstruction reasons, but for simmers it isn't very useful to be able to make super-expensive phone calls... and the ACARS bit is just another data radio, that has no real pilot interface at all.


Hoppie

[YUHAO WANG]

Then why is there no ACMS? That seems to be able to see the landing overload? Thank you for answering

[Jeroen Hoppenbrouwers]

ACMS (Aircraft Condition Monitoring System) has the same problem as CMC (Central Maintenance Computer): it's rather difficult to find out what the system should exactly do under nonstandard conditions. With PSX's circuit breakers and general malfunctions, a simple ACMS sim that just spits out reports isn't interesting. You want the thing to be an exact replica of the real ACMS, responding with the same cryptic combination of false alerts, nuisance alerts, and whatever else it throws at you when something breaks somewhere. And usually by ACARS, so to the ground maintenance guys, not to the pilots at all.

Both CMC and ACMS are actually not used by pilots, they are mostly ground tech systems to help get the aircraft airworthy again as soon as possible by doing fault isolation and repair assistance and suggestions. They add very little to the sim experience if you want to fly. Once parked after the thrill, you can hit the magic technician button and repair it all in a second...

We could also argue that PSX needs a Quick Access Recorder and a Flight Data Recorder. However, just as other systems, these boxes are pretty dumb. They record a data stream. You need significant equipment to download and decode the data dumps, and what you get would be exactly what the Instructor module already provides, just with much more work that does not add to the sim experience.

Now, for pilots, things like landing stresses are relevant, and PSX does have a slew of analytics in the Instructor module that outperform whatever ACMS/CMC/QAR reports you can get. If there's something missing in there, by all means, ask, you never know what you'll get next Thursday.     :-)


Hoppie

[YUHAO WANG]

Your answer answers many questions. Sincerely thank you very much.

[Hardy Heinlin]

Dear gentlemen, please forgive me for using the poor English translation from Google. Excuse me, why is there no SAT, ACMS, CMC function options in fmc?

Dear Yuhao Wang,

you mean CDU, not FMC. The real FMC does not include SAT, ACMS, CMC. I want to mention this because the official PSX product descriptions say "Complete dual FMC model with FANS–1". The PSX FMC simulates all FMC functions. A CDU is not an FMC. A CDU is used to control various systems, e.g. FMC, Standby Navigation, EFIS, EICAS, ACARS, SAT, CMC etc. You see, all these systems together are not the FMC. The FMC is one of them.

If you are seriously interested in technical details and you want to understand all the backup features, source selections, malfunctions, and so on, it's important to understand the difference between "CDU" and "FMC".


Regards,

|-|ardy

[YUHAO WANG]

Dear gentlemen, please forgive me for using the poor English translation from Google. Excuse me, why is there no SAT, ACMS, CMC function options in fmc?

Dear Yuhao Wang,

you mean CDU, not FMC. The real FMC does not include SAT, ACMS, CMC. I want to mention this because the official PSX product descriptions say "Complete dual FMC model with FANS–1". The PSX FMC simulates all FMC functions. A CDU is not an FMC. A CDU is used to control various systems, e.g. FMC, Standby Navigation, EFIS, EICAS, ACARS, SAT, CMC etc. You see, all these systems together are not the FMC. The FMC is one of them.

If you are seriously interested in technical details and you want to understand all the backup features, source selections, malfunctions, and so on, it's important to understand the difference between "CDU" and "FMC".


Regards,

|-|ardy

Your answer answers many questions. Sincerely thank you very much

[YUHAO WANG]

Hello, dear sir. Does the Level d simulator like CAE have such functions as SAT, ACMS, CMC?
Thank you for your answer

[John H Watson]

They do.

Big sims (Level D) don't model everything perfectly, however, especially in relation to the CMC. My engineering instructors did find differences between the sims and the real aircraft.

[YUHAO WANG]

Dear gentlemen, please forgive me for using the poor English translation from Google. Excuse me, why is there no 
MAINTENANCE INDEX function options in INIT /REF INDEX？
Sincerely request answers
thank you very much

[Hardy Heinlin]

Dear Yuhao Wang,

because you are in the air.

The MAINTENANCE INDEX is only enabled on the ground (real 744 and PSX).

(See Aerowinx manual, page 370.)


Regards,

|-|ardy


There is a PSX specific trick to enable it in the air:
Type 666 in the scratchpad, then press LSK 6R on the INIT/REF INDEX page.

[YUHAO WANG]

Dear Yuhao Wang,

because you are in the air.

The MAINTENANCE INDEX is only enabled on the ground (real 744 and PSX).

(See Aerowinx manual, page 370.)


Regards,

|-|ardy


There is a PSX specific trick to enable it in the air:
Type 666 in the scratchpad, then press LSK 6R on the INIT/REF INDEX page.

Your answer is very helpful to me.
Thank you very much