J41 Engine Start Guide

[Guest ACA861]

I'm sure many of you new J41 pilots have or are experiencing the exact same frustration I went through last night: can't start these bloody engines! Even after reading the tutorial, I could not successfully stop and start the J41's engines. Half the time, they spontaneously combusted into a plume of fire and smoke and molten metal!Reading some of the threads on this forum about engine frustrations, I was inspired to create a short video tutorial on how to stop and start the J41's engines, starting from the default aircraft configuration (not cold and dark). I'm just as new to this aircraft as the rest of you, so I may have done some things incorrectly in the video, but this procedure works for me so I hope it will work for you too. It's not nearly as comprehensive as PMDG's official tutorial and skims over a number of procedures outlined in the manual, but I think it will give viewers a good idea of how to start this aircraft without incident. If you have tips or tricks you would like to add, don't hesitate to reply here or on YouTube.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDxWAxPE1UMRegards,-Andrew Noble

[MarkW 1,502]

Good video, although is goes by too fast, had to keep pausing.I burned 4 engines myself before getting it going.There are a few small procedural differences vs. the tutorial and only thing I would add is to check the position of the prop feather to ensure the locks are on, before starting the engines. I know you pulled back in REV after shutdown but some may forget and its a good double check.Mark.

[Tabs 2,790]

Great job Andrew, I'm gonna sticky this...

[Guest ACA861]

Good video, although is goes by too fast, had to keep pausing.I burned 4 engines myself before getting it going.There are a few small procedural differences vs. the tutorial and only thing I would add is to check the position of the prop feather to ensure the locks are on, before starting the engines. I know you pulled back in REV after shutdown but some may forget and its a good double check.Mark.

Thanks Mark. That's good advice, I did not think to add that in the video, but hopefully people will read it here. If I had paced the video to make it more viewable, it probably would have been close to three or four minutes, something I try to avoid doing in order to keep the video compact and the viewing experience terse. The way to view it, as you did, is simply to pause at each step in order to figure out what is going on.Ryan, thanks for the sticky. I'm glad somebody from the PMDG team finds the video an acceptable video guide!-Andrew Noble

[Limp 0]

Nice video, I was lucky enough to understand the manual and get the engines started without exploding them :(But it took me a while to prepare for takeoff, I kept on having a config error... I had forgotten to switch off avionics at one point, and I still don't understand why you need to do that ... ?

[Guest 413X3]

I assume because of the large battery load the avionics take up, you overload the systems because it takes all the energy to get the engines going as well.

[downscc 1,327]

The avionics are turned off during engine start to prevent voltage spikes from hurting the electronics. You should be doing the same thing in the C172 if you happen to turn on a radio for ATIS check or clearance delivery before starting engine.

[Limp 0]

Interesting, I didn't know that ;) Thanks for the info...

[Guy014 9]

Thanks for the video! :)

[Roadburner426 19]

I've had very minor issues getting the engines started. Only torched about 3 so far, and written off one aircraft completely (exceeded airframe stress limits on tutorial flight). My issues now is shutting them down. Can't ever seem to get them on the start locks. I am going to try using the stop button instead of the condition levers though. Maybe that is what I am doing wrong and will make it easier to monitor the RPM on pull back. Takes forever to use that little pump to reset the props, lol. Done that more times than I can count now. Thanks for the video!

[mcbellette 145]

Good video, but it goes through it much too fast. Can you edit the video to slow it down? Otherwise, it's just too fast to use proparly as an aid.

[Guy014 9]

Good video, but it goes through it much too fast. Can you edit the video to slow it down? Otherwise, it's just too fast to use proparly as an aid.

You can always follow the tutorial supplied by PMDG. It's the way I learned to start up the MD-11. :)

[mcbellette 145]

I suppose, but nothing beats seeing it being done before your eyes. I haven't bought the JS4100 yet - still undecided.

[Guy014 9]

I suppose, but nothing beats seeing it being done before your eyes. I haven't bought the JS4100 yet - still undecided.

Not going to pressure you into it mate! Not my job. :(Either way, you'll be seeing many tutorials, guides, videos, instructionals in the coming weeks.

[mcbellette 145]

The main sticking point for me is FSX. The environment is pathetic - YSSY resembles a desert strip - and the performance I get from even the default FSX C172 is abysmal. My rig isn't even what I would think would be considered slow:Hewlett-Packard Pavilion PCOS: MS Windows XP (Media Center Edition)CPU: Intel Core2 6400 @ 2.13GHzRAM: 2GBVideo Card: NVidia GeForce 7600GS - 512MB RAMHDD: 280GB capacity