Majestic Dash 8-Q400 (SFX)

[Maarten Otto]

Bought this baby today and although I still have to figure out how this thing works inside-out I am very impressed. Any of you got it as well, and what do you think?  Do you have any tips.... or found an easy to understand tutorial?

[ArcherII]

I own it and IMHO the best turboprop simulation ever. Although it has pretty advanced displays and an FMC, you pretty much have to fly it like an 80's TP, climb by IAS, there's no autothrottle so cruise performance is obtained by your own power settings (beware of not reaching Vne!), and for descent you have to make calculations (there's a VNAV feature for descent as well, but I barely use it, quite limited).

What else?? 

[Maarten Otto]

Tried it and liked it....

Still I struggle a bit. When I descent the AC is really hanging with the nose up and I can't see where I'm going. Not handy if you can't see the runway.... 

So where is that trim to point the nose down a bit???

Secondly I struggle to line it up with the runway. Somehow it suddenly disconnects from the LNAV and won't select the ILS.

[ArcherII]

That's strange. This airplane, like the vast majority of turboprops, doesn't have a nose-up approach. Usually around 0º.

Do you have the correct Vref according to your weight?

For the LOC, I'll need to try it out, but I believe you had to tune the ILS freq yourself and then select what type of nav you wanted the AP to follow (FMC, VOR, HDG or APP).

[swiftus27]

are you carrying enough speed in your descent?     The Dash 8 isnt a glider on approach like most commercial planes.  

Perhaps at full flaps she can stay level with lower speed but high attitude maybe that isnt necessary?

[ArcherII]

are you carrying enough speed in your descent?     The Dash 8 isnt a glider on approach like most commercial planes.  

Perhaps at full flaps she can stay level with lower speed but high attitude maybe that isnt necessary?

Yep, power off approaches are quite prohibitive in propeller driven airplanes (talking of those with wing-mounted powerplants).