Problem Acts Like a Pitot Heat Failure

[Chuck]

Has anyone else ever experienced an Intermittent failure of the auto pilot where it will completely disconnect, airspeed selector will go to
zero and the plane will start diving, only to recover below 10,000 feet, making the passengers scream and the fear level to go to 0? This
has been happening to me on and off for weeks now and I'll be darned if I can figure out what's causing it. Symptoms are just like a
freeze up of my pitot's but I have set the heat on every way possible, panel switch and shift-h etc. I've disabled all failures that can be
disabled, both in the in moreoptions.cfg file and the FSPax set up, but it still happens and is not restricted to any one plane or place or
anything else I can determine.

Can someone just verify for me that these symptoms are not a failure in FSPax? In other words, I am not familiar with any FSPax preset
failure that would behave like this, enabled or not.

Thanks folks.

(BTW, I did check the FAQ and do a search, but I certainly could have read past it.)

[dannye92]

does this happen to you during your climb?

[Chuck]

dannye92 wrote:
does this happen to you during your climb?

Yes. That's the only time it ever happens.

[dannye92]

around what altittude does it happen



Post Edited ( 07-05-08 01:29 )

[Chuck]

dannye92 wrote:
around what altittude does it happen

I haven't been able to determine that, but it's certainly after transition altitude.

And now it just happened more than an hour into a flight from KIAH to KBDL -- in rough air, so scratch my last post about it only happening during climb. Now that I think about it, it could be happening in rough air all the time, and the climb phase part is just coincidental to that condition. Not just during the climb stage, hmm. I have no idea what could be causing this.



Post Edited ( 07-05-08 02:11 )

[Chuck]

During a thunderstorm at about 25,000 feet - about 6k feet below me, to be exact.

[dannye92]

thats strange

well i havent had rough air much so i dont why it happens there

but during the climb it happend becaus eon autopilot while it was climbing the plane lost too much much airpseed the autopilot did its best to keep
speed up but the plane ends up stalling the autopilot disconnecting and the plane just diving and dont get control till i'm enarly hitting the ground

so i fixed this by lets my cruise altittude was 39000

i would level off at around 35000 get my speed up and then climb the rest of the way

[Chuck]

dannye92 wrote:
thats strange

i would level off at around 35000 get my speed up and then climb the rest of the way

Thanks dannye92 -- I never fly above 31,000 feet. The Air Speed indicators drop to zero during this whole thing too. That's what I meant -- it's like the pitots freeze up -- but the heat IS on!

i have a feeling this is going to turn out to be one of those weird FS9 issues.



Post Edited ( 07-05-08 03:29 )

[dannye92]

what do you usually fly

the same thing does happen to me just at higher alttitudes indicator shoots down to 0 and freezes there till i get control back then shoots back up again

only happend since i re-installed

my contrails dont appear anymore either lol

[SkyAirWorld]

Perhaps re-install again,

what Aircraft are you using?

do the exact same flight, and take a screenshot of the cockpit (2D), of all the insruments (throtles, panel, all that), and if it happens put a
shot up of that aswell as its crashing, so do not take controll of the aircaft if it happens, let it go and see what happens,,

Post the screens and we might be able to help you more

[dannye92]

with mine if i dont take control it crashes into the ground

[Chuck]

dannye92 wrote:
with mine if i dont take control it crashes into the ground

With mine, if I do nothing my a/c does recover but not until about 12,000 feet my air speed indicator
comes back, but my plane is in overspeed (500+ MPH) and my pax are 100% scared, and I get a "Dive of Death" penalty/comment at the
end.



Post Edited ( 07-05-08 20:35 )

[SkyAirWorld]

What aircraft are you guys using?

[Chuck]

SkyAirWorld wrote:
What aircraft are you guys using?

Mostly the Overlands -- all of them -- and Jet City Aircraft's 717 --- but this has never happened before with these planes and I've been using them forever. The only thing on my system that has recently changed is FSPax.

Are you aware of such a failure like this in FSPax -autopilot failure or pitot freezup? I don't think so, which leads me to believe my problem could lie elsewhere. A hot key automatically activated by Radar Contact or FDC Live Cockpit, or weather smoothing in FSUIPC perhaps, although I don't know of any command anywhere to "freeze piton" regardless of panel setting! :-}



Post Edited ( 07-06-08 14:37 )

[SkyAirWorld]

Actually in FSP I think I have had a Pitot freezup, some of my insruments were lost, however It may have been caused by me with a key,
but I dont think it was me, so I think it was FSP anyway (Shift+H on my set up for pitot failure)

Have a look in FS commands and delete the key(s) for that failure, and try again if it happens I dont know what it is

I really have no idea if that does not help..... I dont see how it can happen, unless you accidently have the failure thing on for FS with the
time delay on....