Decent rate penalties

[EHM-1570 Bruce]

I have just flown a flight in the Airbus 310 Cargo, and have incurred penalties for a high descent rate (over 4500 ft/min), however the descent rate was never set above 3000ft/min. Could this be due to the fact that the default B734 panel is used in this aircraft?, and settings do not correspond to Airbus settings, the flap settings are totally different.

[EHM-0654 Murray]

In similar "news", I forgot to turn on landing lights before 10,000 on the flight back from Marseilles just now, but picked up a "no landing lights at takeoff" penalty? Go figure!

[EHM-1570 Bruce]

I have just flown the Fokker 70 and picked up penalties for an excessive descent rate (over 4500 ft/min), the vertical speed was never set above 2500 ft/min

[EHM-0005 Maarten]

I fly the Fokker 70 quite often and I noticed that the AP exceeded 4500 fpm, but I set it to 4200 fpm. This only happens when just engaged the AP.

[EHM-1281 Cyriel]

I have had penalties for this as well. Autopilot logic in FS first seems to go to descent at a rate above the one set in the autopilot. After that it will adjust to the rate set in the autopilot.

Solution is to start at around 1800fpm and then increase to the level wanted. I'm not sure what real life descent rates are btw but 1800fpm is usually more then adequate for me.

Anyone knows what a real life descent profile looks like?

[EHM-1651 Christian]

There is climb and decent charts for all Eurohamony main division aircrafts
in the fleet page.

The A330 rates are:
Climb
max 4000fpm @250kn below FL100
FL100 to FL200 2000-2500fpm@260-350kn
FL200 to FL260 1000-1500fpm
FL260 to FL350 300-1500fpm deepending on weight

Decent
2500fpm to FL100
Below FL100 800-3000fpm

[EHM-1570 Bruce]

I have just flown the B738 and on descent the descent rate was set at 2500ft/min, I timed the descent with stopwatch and it was exactly 2500 ft in 1 minute, and yet I still incurred penalties for high descent rate !!!!

[EHM-1570 Bruce]

I have just checked through the acars file for my flight in the B738 and at no point is the descent rate in excess of 2500 ft/min. so I have no idea why I should have incurred descent rate penalties.

[EHM-1150 Armando]

My friends,

I'm going to investigate what's going on about these penalties.

Please be patiente.

Regards
Armando Chibante

[EHM-1570 Bruce]

I have just made another flight in the B738, this time I got V/S penalty on climb out from airport, while under the control of the FMC???. I have found that if you do not descend at a rate in excess of 2000 ft/min you will not incurr any descent rate penalties.

[EHM-0948 Bruno]

Hi Bruce,

Are you using PMDG 737-800 right ?

That happens because when you take off, the airplane goes with too much speed (normally it's rare to do a re-rated thrust take-off) and the airplane compensates the speed with climb rate.

What you need to do is to set your FMC for a CLB-2 take-off and climb mode. Basically it's the second screen on the INIT REF sector.
After that, set a climb TGT speed of 285kn.

The first part (CLB-2) will give only 82.7% of power on the take off and climb until you reach FL180.
After that value, the airplane passes to CLB mode (full thrust mode) to give you all the possible thrust. Again he will climb much if you don't set a high speed value to compensate the climb rate.

Hope it helps.

[EHM-0654 Murray]

Thanks for that Bruno. I've been wondering for quite some time how to get around the problem of the 737 (PM in my case) climbing at a silly speed.

[EHM-0948 Bruno]

Hi,

Normally the full T/O thrust mode, or the "x"-1 modes,  are used on bad weather where the airplane can shake a bit and loose some power due to strong winds or head winds ... So, we compensate it by a full power thrust.

So, for normal weather take off and climbing, I always use CLB-2 mode, even if the airplane is fully loaded (100% payload, 100% fuel).

Also, don't forget that the airplane will take some time to climb so, it will follow the SID in a much more good way (don't you ever wonder why you got to the ceiling SID altitude on a waypoint too fast ? ).

Regards,

[EHM-1500 Jim]

Try a full ILS  DME east approach into Innsbruck and see if you can do that with out the dreaded v/s greater than 4500ftpm.........haven't succeeded yet, hence my woeful score so far!!

[EHM-1651 Christian]

Well it must be possible most mediumsized jets like the B737 doesn't have an max decent rate of over 4500ft/m

[EHM-1465 Dominic]

I've just received a penalty for excessive descent speed... during my initial climb away from Luanda (1st leg of the UNHCR event)

On checking my ACARS I see this is when I hit the B key at 6000 feet to reset the altimeter and due to the stormy atmospheric conditions the altitude (adjusted to the standard atmosphere) has nosedived in a fraction of a second..! Of course I was actually climbing at about 1500 fpm at that same moment...

Is there any way to get my 240 penalty points cancelled as it's clearly not an accurate record of how the flight went - it was my only penalty so far on ProPilot

[EHM-1703 Philip]

Sorry Dominic, I am pretty sure you can not get penalties credited. (there may be a way but I certainly don't know where it is in the backend!)

This is the first time this penalty has arisen from pressing the B key. To go from +1500 fpm to -4500fpm is a difference of 6,000 fpm, maybe it is possible to record the penalty by dropping 100 feet of altitude in one second!

I am sure Bruno/Armando will look in to it when they read this.

[EHM-0654 Murray]

Bruno/Armando - just to add to the discussion a little. The Project Magenta FMC (B737 settings), even at CLB-2, will occasionally climb at over 5000ft/min in N1 (TOGA) mode! And I've seen the PMDG implementation do it too.

In partial/full computer controlled climb, the speed is controlled by the (mis)use of the climb rate until SPEED/VNAV mode is engaged. I'd hazard a guess that most sim pilots don't fully appreciate this and subsequently see/get climb rate penalties when having the FMC fly the departure.

[EHM-1905 Mikael]

Originally posted by EHM-1703 Philip
This is the first time this penalty has arisen from pressing the B key. To go from +1500 fpm to -4500fpm is a difference of 6,000 fpm, maybe it is possible to record the penalty by dropping 100 feet of altitude in one second!

I am sure Bruno/Armando will look in to it when they read this.

I got the 4500 penalty twice in a row, yesterday and today, and didn't notice anything like that at the yoke. But it's big leaps in pressure passing TA, from 2992 to 2958in my last flight. Suspicious? Not sure...

[EHM-1905 Mikael]

Well, after monitoring my own lift off this morning in the F70, I think I probably earned my penalty. :$ Or is it just descending that causes the penalty?

After forgetting to click "Pro Pilot" in the Flight Logger, I have to re-fly the route again - yeaaaah!!

[EHM-1838 Andrew]

Hello all
Although its logged as exceeding 4500 on descent you will find that its probably on takeoff that you are incurring the penalty.I have learnt to  takeoff without exceeding the 4500 fpm mark and no longer get the penalty.
cheers Andy

[EHM-0948 Bruno]

Hi,

The penalty can be for positive or negative Angle of attacks (AOA's).

Regards,