Ideal Flight Accessibility phase 3

[Steve Waite]

It's amazing you can do that, I was hoping you can get it working.

Landing off runway, I wonder if you had a side wind pushing you off centerline. You need to be on or quite near the runway when you touchdown for the steering assist to bring you closer to the center.

You have to select approach and then final speed presets yourself with the hot-key, so be on auto-throttle (CONTROL+SHIFT+S) then advance the preset for speed (CONTROL+SHIFT+N). The auto-preset changes are only made from Climb to Cruise. The LOC should engage before the glideslope usually. If you have the HSI callouts enabled in the Voice Preset (horizontal situation indicator) you would hear "% left or right C D I" (course direction indicator) and "% above or below G S I" (glideslope indicator). When AP APPR and ALT are set on with the GPS switched to NAV, the glideslope is engaged and the ALT setting switches off when the glideslope is engaged and you can check the Assists to see if that is happening, and listen out for the Glideslope callout. If you are descending too low or too high it might not catch the slope, and you might not have the LOC as well.

Throttle shut-off should work at around 20 feet above the runway. Make sure the item is checked in the Assist checkbox window.

I'll check it all out and see if it is working properly, it could be the Restriction setting causing all the issues, maybe try with Restriction Speed Altitude unchecked in Flight Gen.

Incidentally, shut-off height can be edited with Notepad in the file Settings.ini - in the folder:

C:\ProgramData\Ideal Flight Professional\Profiles

[Measurement]
ShutThrottleHeight=15

That defaults to 15 feet plus the landing gear height added to that. The Autopilot is also shut off at the same time with the item checked in the Assists. The braking and spoiler should come on after touchdown when the auto-throttle is active.

The Assists can be set up before flying in the "Other Settings" page in Ideal Flight, "More Settings" checkbox window.

[obert01]

Hello Steve,

I am writing in this topic because it is quite active and I am also a blind pilot, but this question is not really accessibility-related.

I have activated a speed limitation of 250kts below 10,000 in the "flight generator". And I am regularly receiving the message "Operation Error, Restriction: Below Altitude, Max Speed 250 Knots, 10000 Feet", while my indicated air speed is far below 250kts. I have the impression the control is made on the true air speed, but I am quite sure this kind of limitation should be made on the indicated air speed. Is there a true/indicated air speed confusion in the code?

For instance, 14 CFR section §91.117(a) (Aircraft speed) states:
"(a) Unless otherwise authorized by the Administrator, no person may operate an aircraft below 10,000 feet MSL at an indicated airspeed of more than 250 knots (288 m.p.h.)."
https://www.ecfr.gov/cgi-bin/text-idx?n ... 7&rgn=div8

As a side note, I really enjoy IdealFlight, even if the number of options and features is a bit confusing at first sight. I would like to address a warm thank you to you for all the work you dedicate to us as a blind population, which I suppose, is not the majority of your users.

Kind regards,

Olivier

P.S.: I am French, and English is not my native language. Hope my sentences are sufficiently understandable.

[Orinks]

Okay, so when using the go to final option and the sim reloads at final, what options should be set?
When I unpause the sim especially in a heavy jet aircraft I have to quickly try and turn AP, and all of the holds on.
Also what is a good VS to set for 12 miles from the TDWN waypoint, which is where it places me? The biggest issue I'm having is manually setting VS to match speeds to hit the runway. I'm too early a lot of the time.

[Steve Waite]

The APP1 to TDWN distance is calculated from your Final approach speed you set in Aircraft Flight Parameters, and the Final approach leg time you set in Mission page which is five minutes.

12 Nautical miles out at 5 minutes = 5 minutes divided by 60 = 0.0833 hours, and 12 Nautical miles divided by 0.0833 = 144 knots. So if you hold 144 knots from APP1 you will be 5 minutes from TDWN.

With no ILS and using the Ideal Flight Computed Approach and Auto-Pilot: If you are 2500 feet above the runway and set the Auto-Pilot VS to 500 feet per minute, 5 minutes times 500 feet = 2500 feet, you will be at runway level in 5 minutes if you hold the speed set in Aircraft Parameters. You should meet the TDWN waypoint just before touchdown.

Also remember to set the air pressure using the B key which will calibrate the Kollsman.

If you have an ILS with Glideslope you can set the Auto-Pilot altitude hold to just below the runway level. Say the runway is at 250 feet you can set the Auto-Pilot altitude hold to 200 feet and the VS to (for example) minus 200 if you are below the slope (% below GSI callouts) or minus 900 if you are above the slope (% above GSI callouts), so your aircraft will meet the slope and the ALT switch will turn OFF and the Auto-Pilot APPR will control the descent.

You would set the Auto-Pilot on with APPR and ALT switches set to ON and the GPS/NAV switch to NAV and the NAV selector 1/2 set to the NAV with the ILS frequency for the runway, you can set the auto-throttle to final speed as well. You could set all those before unpausing and also set the flaps and landing gear down to slow the descent.

You could set the Ideal Flight Computed Approach Final Leg time (Mission page) to six minutes to give you a minute before commencing a 5 minute descent.

[Orinks]

So a few observations as I was practicing approaches in a 737 jet:

In a lot of cases I was able to catch the slope with not too much effort. However, the best landing I had was when I tried the aircraft's auto-throttle after the IF auto-throttle, even with flaps extended to five, and I even tried full flaps at one point... the slowest I could get it was 199 knots true. With flaps extended to 5 deg I told the aircraft auto-throttle to go to 140 knots and I got there way faster than IF auto-throttle and stayed on the slope the entire time as a result.

I'm pretty sure it'd work better with the Dash8 I was using to perform that successful flight I posted about the other day, and with that I have no choice but to use the IF auto-throttle.

[Steve Waite]

OK I will check that out.

I have been improving the auto-throttle with the fix for the problems created with altitude-speed restriction present, and improving some other aspects. The A-T works Ok but the decision tree has some problems with the restriction setting and from starting with saved flights that sort of thing. Retesting should show up any problems.

You should find that the aircraft own auto-throttle speed setting is made when you operate the Ideal Flight auto-throttle, then when you change to the aircraft auto-throttle the speed is already set.

[Steve Waite]

...I have found with the altitude-speed restriction setting the auto-throttle does not sit at the approach speeds, so that's a bug to do with the decision making and you will find it not slowing down as you say. All sorted in the next update which I shall make available shortly.

[Steve Waite]

I found I accidentally introduced a bug in the Go To Approach function so it might not set the GPS to the required waypoint along the route, which will also be fixed in the next update.

Introducing the Assist and Accessibility features has surprising effects and testing must be done with many things that might not seem to be in scope of being affected.

Therefore feedback for any issues no matter how small at this stage is critical and very important and much appreciated.

[Orinks]

Was there an issue with go to final as well?
Looking forward to the auto-throttle updates although I guess this will delay testing taxi a bit.

[Steve Waite]

Yes. The auto-throttle speed was being overridden with the higher speed of the restriction and so when we selected approach and final speeds it was actually working but then overridden in the next second. Also the spoilers were not actuating to slow down to approach and final speeds, that's also fixed now. The way it is supposed to work is the engines relent and the spoilers come out to follow a retardation rate of around 45 seconds per decrease of 100 knots. Similarly when accelerating the rate is governed by 60 seconds per increase of 100 knots.