MAIN

MISCELLANEOUS

LIGHTING

AUTOTHROTTLES

AUTOPILOT

INS SYSTEM

FLIGHT DIRECTOR

RADIOS

ANTI-ICE

WARNINGS

PROBLEMS/FAQ'S

 

MISCELLANEOUS



COCKPIT VIEWS

Cockpit views are activated in the usual Shift-number pad way. The exception is upper view which doubles as the overhead panel view.  It is activated using the sim icon.  In FS2004, you can also open the overhead by pressing Control + Numpad 5.  




The overhead can be closed by clicking on the X icon in the upper right corner of the overhead, or also in FS2004 by pressing Shift + Numpad 8.  



To switch to landing view, click on the mouse hot spot with the two arrows just below the marker beacon lights. This view is handy for landing or barnstorming as it lets you see more of the scenery and less of the panel. As you only have a view indicators available in this view, it might be a good idea if you are fully configured for landing and have received your landing clearance before engaging this view. To get back to normal view, just click on the button again.



SPEED BUGS



Clicking on the ASI once while on the ground will set the speed bugs for takeoff, and clicking it while in the air will set the bugs for landing. Bugs are automatically set according to your aircraft's weight. Repeated clicking on the ASI while the readout is still visible will cycle through other available flap settings and will set the bugs accordingly.

 

AUTO SPOILERS

An icon has been added to show your speed brake lever status.  Green is speed brakes down.  It changes to amber if they are armed and red if they are deployed.  

Ground spoilers can be armed either by clicking on the icon or by the usual Shift-/ method.  On landing, you'll hear a loud "wheeep!" which is the motor that throws the lever back.  You'll hear the motor again when moving the thrust levers forward, even if you manually restored the lever to down.

AUTO ENGINE SMOKE



The panel will automatically turn on engine smoke effects at high thrust settings, such as during takeoff. You should get those nice smoky take-offs, but you need to have smoke effects installed in your aircraft.cfg. Most already do. With this feature, you no longer have the ability to turn smoke on manually, such as through the menu or with the "i" key.

 

AUTO SPOILERS

An icon has been added to show your speed brake lever status.  Green is speed brakes down.  It changes to amber if they are armed and red if they are deployed.  

Ground spoilers can be armed either by clicking on the icon or by the usual Shift-/ method.  On landing, you'll hear a loud "wheeep!" which is the motor that throws the lever back.  You'll hear the motor again when moving the thrust levers forward, even if you manually restored the lever to down.



AUTO TAXI



A new feature on this panel is automatic taxi speed control. Pushing the button labeled "T" located beside the marker beacon indicator will automatically control thrust and braking to maintain approximately an 11 knot taxi speed. This speed was chosen to allow you to keep an exact pace with taxiing AI traffic. It also provides an easy means to taxi while in spot plane view. The button will flash when Auto Taxi is active. Pushing the button again will turn it off. You will still have to tap the brakes when turning corners. This feature is not very sophisticated, so please disregard engine readings while it is being used.

You should ideally be able to taxi at idle thrust once rolling. Since there is an unrealistically high amount of ground friction in FS, this feature was added as a work-around. The takeoff configuration warning is inhibited regardless of EPR reading and flap setting when Auto Taxi is enabled.



MARKER BEACON SENSITIVITY SWITCH



This switch controls the sensitivity of your marker beacon receiver. It's normally left in the high position until passing the outer marker, then switched over to low for greater precision.

COMPRESSOR STALLS

When at high reverse thrust settings and low speeds, you'll hear the engine compressors stalling (not every aircraft you download will support this).   You'll also hear compressor stalls when the aircraft stalls in flight and at high power settings.  



PNEUMATIC EMERGENCY BRAKE



This is not your parking brake. This handle controls the emergency pneumatic brake that is available if the regular hydraulic powered brakes should fail. PSI on the gauge should normally be 1200, but you will see it drop as you use the brake. You get about three stops before you run out of air pressure. The pressure gauge shares its location with the TAT gauge. This was a space saving strategy. It will automatically show when you activate the brake handle. You can also just click on the TAT gauge to bring it in view.



CLOCK/TIMER



The clock has two timers shown as the smaller dials set in the face. The bottom on is a minute timer which goes up to 15 minutes then starts over again. Pushing once on the brass colored button in the lower right stops the timer. Pushing it again resets the counter to zero. The upper dial is the elapsed time which goes all the way up to 12 hours. It's controlled with the black lever on the upper right. It is in the "run" position by default. It can be stopped and zeroed with the same lever. I have disabled the ability to set the time with knob in the lower left due to the long texture loading. You'll have to set the time through the FS menu.



FIRE HANDLES



What will happen if you pull these is that after approximately 25 seconds, your engine bleed air, hydraulic, and fuel lines will be closed and your engine will quit. You will not be able to restart. You'll have to select a default aircraft then reselect your 727 to clear the failure. Engine fire simulations are not available, but you can test the fire loops and see the handles light up. See WARNINGS for more details.



ALTERNATE FLAP EXTENSION



These switches provide an alternate way of extending your flaps. The red guarded switch must first be set to on, then the flaps can be extended, retracted, or halted by clicking on the UP, DN, or OFF switch labels.

Both flaps and slats will extend to only to their detents and at normal speed.



YAW DAMPERS AND FLIGHT CONTROLS INDICATOR



Yaw dampers are automatically set with this panel. In the pictured surface position indicator, you'll see two red flags when the upper and lower yaw dampers are not powered. You'll also see the elevator and rudder position on this same gauge.



FUEL PANEL



The Flight Engineer's fuel panel is opened using the gas pump icon on the main panel. 



Pressing and holding the Fuel Qty Test button will cause the fuel quantity gauge needle to slowly spin down to zero. Release the switch, and they will spin back up to the normal quantity.



There's eight electric fuel boost pumps on the panel, two for each wing tank, and four for the center. If you are starting with a cold, dark cockpit, you'll have to turn these on before flight. Otherwise, they come on automatically. Next to each switch is an amber warning light that comes on when fuel pressure is low, either from a boost pump not being on or from low fuel quantity.


There's three fuel tank-to-engine selector knobs. Due to the inability to get correct tank to engine settings with MSFS, these switches don't do anything on the panel. 



There's also three fuel shutoff switches. Don't touch these. Next to the switch, you'll see a blue valve light that will come on if the switch or the fuel shutoff levers on the throttle quadrant are closed.



TRIMMING

Rudder trim is controlled with the large round knob on the second radio stack.

There is no aileron trim on this panel.

Elevator trim is controlled through the keyboard or joystick buttons (if programmed).  There's two elevator trim indicators.  One is on the throttle quadrant to the left of the throttle levers.  Since the trim indicator tends to get covered up by the larger throttle levers, there's also a trim icon located just below the spoiler icon for convenience.  It has three colored bands.  Brown - think dirt - is nose down, green is the takeoff band where you won't get a beep-beep takeoff warning, and blue is nose up.



ENGINE START



Engine starter switches are located on the second overhead panel (Click the overhead panel icon, or press Ctrl-Numpad 5 in FS2004). All guarded switches are now single action for this version.  This means that you no longer have to open the switch guard then click the toggle - just click on the switch guard and the starters will be activated.  Press the space bar to return to the front view.  Open up the throttle panel.  At peak N2, about 22%, you can then place the fuel shutoff levers on the throttle panel to idle, and the engines will start.  Repeat for the other engines.

This is normally a two-handed operation. On this panel, the starter switches will hold themselves in the Ground position until approximately 40% N2, then will automatically shut off.