Aircraft Crashing in mid-flight

[Dwaffler]

I've had this happen a couple of times now, and it's a little annoying.

I setup a flight for an aircraft, get the aircraft up to cruising altitude and on cruise speed (actually a little below, countering for any wind
changes). The GPS is flying the plan according to the plan setup. So, I set the time accel to 2x, and I walk away for a bit. These particular flight
were all over 3 hours + long, so I check on it everynow and then. When I get with in about 300 miles of my destination, I get back in the seat and fly
the plane home.

So, my plane is cruising along, passengers happy with food and a movie. I come back about 15-20 minutes later, and I see a black screen with a
FSPassengers message saying that the aircraft crashed. Whatt!!!

So I click on the OK button, and sure as can be, my aircraft is on the ground. I look at the flight log, and it doesn't give me anything to give me a
clue like anything happened. Of course, everyone died, plane hits the ground very hard, and there's talk about a stall and not a good idea to do that
with passengers (although in a couple of flights, the plane was empty!!).

Now, I think that the time compression may have something to do with it, since this has never happened on any of my 1x flights. But, the fact that it
doesn't show me what happened really gives me fits

Any ideas?

[damocles]

Uuum.... don't leave the flight????...maybe.....

I wonder how many pilots jump out of their seat and make a cup of tea and watch tv during long flights

[gbapache]

This is just throwing noodles on the 'fridge BUT.... if you were on otto and had a dual engine flameout, your "ridged wing" refrigerater
would try to maintain that altitude to the bitter end. STALL. Look at fuel for the mission or was there a fuel leak. And welcome aboard.

[Dwaffler]

I checked that too, as i've gotten burned by that once. I barely made a landing with a fuel leak, so that was the first thing I checked.

Guess I'll try it again tonight, to see what I can see, while sitting there at the controls. The one thing I found very weird was that it happened to
the same aircraft 3x. So, I thought it was the aircraft (BTW, it was the same aircraft I had the original fuel problem, darn 2500 hour A310-300!!!)
but, the last time this happened it was on a 10 hour ERJ-145ER. So, I thought something was amiss

I'll let you know when I find out tonight as I fly from Vancouver to San Diego in her

[Thunderstorm]

Good evening ;-)
I had this with a Learjet 45.
After about 60 Minutes flight I crashed 2 times and the flight report doesn't say anything. The image shows the nose of the learjet in a mountain. I
left the room, too - so I don't know what has happened!
I'll try again later!

[whiskey-zulu]

What time compression rate are you using; autopilot ceases to function properly after x16 rate. which will cause problems with the aircraft.

[Dwaffler]

Only go to 2x on those flights, I've never gone above 44, and that's only on over the ocean flights. And the weather was partly cloudy to clear in all the cases.



Post Edited ( 06-26-09 22:48 )

[whiskey-zulu]

It is quite possible when using time compression at whatever rate, that if the aircraft and autopilot are just minutely configured wrongly that the
a/c will drop out of the sky. I try to avoid using time compressio due to the inaccuratcies in the default autopilot.

[Dwaffler]

Hmmm, never thought of that. I've never had any problems with the AP before, even flying at 4x, but then maybe FSPassengers is just touchy enough that
it can sense changes in the way things are going, and reacts to it.

Like I said, I'll watch this tonight to see what goes on

[pealextf]

Well I've had some problems with mid-air crashes. I was once flying my learjet without time compression and when I came back to the
seat the plane had crashed. I did not manage to see the replay, but I did see the aircraft, and it was in normal flying position.

The flight report said that I had overstressed the plane, but I have realized that I most likely crashed with AI traffic, since when that
happens AI planes just keep going on their trips and you crash. Unfurtunatly FS did not show the information about the crash on the top of
the screen by the time I saw the crash.(it was already gone)

I think that may have happened with you, but itshould not happen in all flights, time compression may be causing problems to the
autopilot.

[Thunderstorm]

Well, this is the reason why I turned that automatic crash detection off.
It's the same with the cars on the ground - when you taxi to the gate after a 3h trip and then the atc tells you: hold position, caution other traffic
- and 2 sec. later a stupid small car chrashes into your plane!!!

And back to topic well I don't use time acceleration.....

[Leftcoaster]

It's surprising nobody has brought up the horrific FS upper air wind changes as a possible cause for the OP's crashes.

Many users ignore Mne (Mach never exceed speed) and when FS imposes a 100 knot wind change the aircraft crash from being
overstressed. Using a weather smoother like Active Sky or a registered FSUIPC helps but still there is that tendency to fly high and fast,
literally pushing the (flight) envelope until FS decides it's time to kill you off.

Check OAT as well; sometimes real wx will create an inversion where it is very warm at high altitudes and if this changes suddenly you
can find yourself exceeding Mne even without any wind changes.

Most of the better FDE authors include turbulent air penetration speeds in the pilot's notes, those cruising high and fast while wandering
off to do real life stuff, might consider cruising at these much reduced speeds or mach numbers. You're likely to see fewer mysterious
crashes if you do.

Cheers

[Dwaffler]

That's why I set my Mach number at just under cruise speed, just in case the plane decided to try and overspeed when the upper level winds change.

I didn't even think about the AI aircraft. I've never had that happen to me in the past, but never doesn't mean it hasn't happened.

I was able to fly that flight in 2x with me sitting at the controls, well, more like monitoring them while I was doing something else in the seat
while flying. Maybe the plane was throwing a fit because I was keeping an eye on it, or because there's a unknown seat switch in the software that
knows when I'm not nearby