Helicopter issues

[Deano1973]

Hi Peter, a recent log from one of our rotary pilots detailing some of their issues, with log entries and description;

Report following further test flights 010317. WAT04, WAT06, and intermittently WAT01.

Dan started at EGOS awaiting us to join, at this stage he had not sync'd any weather. I then joined and we synchronised weather with my pc and not the server so that we could both see the same. i had rain and 14kts @ 213, whereas Dan experienced clear skies and 10Kts @211 and saw my hover in front of him as jumping about. ( i can hear the comments of my hover skills already being questioned, but they were not that bad !!!!) My view of dan's aircraft was not jumping, we then performed a right hand circuit departing from 036 with Dan leading us out. all smooth up to the turn where there were glitches / lag that caused the airframes to not be in formation.
Part way through the circuits we swapped positions and i took flight lead, again the flight was constant to the point of the turns as the cyclic inputs are not being shared in time and this is creating a lag that is hard to follow and catch up on.

We landed on the 36 feathers and awaited Mac's airframe to join. whilst monitoring the "Nodes" "Airframes" and "log", we could sometimes see mac in the nodes but not airframes, or airframes and nodes for about 20 seconds and then he would dissappear again. numerous attempts were made to connect and dissconnect by mac to renew the lists, but to no avail as his airframe would only sometimes be seen briefly.

the log was indicating :-
"01/03/2017 21:11:04 Simconnect exception: 25" this was shortly after removing someones shared "fuel trucks / baggage carts and sewage trucks ???
VEH_Air_BagLoaderGrey
01/03/2017 21:10:30 Removed object: VEH_air_bagcart1, as VEH_air_bagcart1
01/03/2017 21:10:30 Removed object: VEH_Air_BagLoaderGrey,
Veh_Air_Fueltruck01_sm
01/03/2017 21:10:30 Removed object: Veh_Air_SewageTruck_sm, as Veh_Air_SewageTruck_sm
01/03/2017 21:10:30 Removed object: Veh_Air_BagTractor_Euro_Gray_sm, as Veh_Air_BagTractor_Euro_Gray_sm
interesting as i was not running any AI or niceties at the airports, not that shawbury has these.......

there was also VRS info being shared on the server ??? was this a tackpack night ?

01/03/2017 21:24:12 Added helicopter: WAT06, Aerospatiale AS350B1 DHFS Squirrel HT1, ZJ278, as Aerospatiale AS350B1 helialps
01/03/2017 21:24:20 Removed plane: , VRS_AI_5, as VRS_AI_5
01/03/2017 21:24:20 Removed plane: , VRS_AI_10_1_0, as VRS_AI_10_1_0
01/03/2017 21:24:20 Removed plane: , VRS_AI_10_0, as VRS_AI_10_0
01/03/2017 21:24:20 Removed helicopter: FTS02, AS 350 Ecureuil DHFS, as AS 350 Ecureuil DHFS
01/03/2017 21:24:20 Removed node 13152
01/03/2017 21:24:25 METAR Update: 080029Z 25305KT&D304NG 32KM&B9&D500 35KM&B509&D250 40KM&B759&D250 45KM&B1009&D250 50KM&B1259&D250 55KM&B1509&D250 60KM&B1759&D250 64KM&B2009&D250 70KM&B2259&D250 75KM&B2509&D250 80KM&B2759&D250 90KM&B3009&D250 100KM&B3259&D9999 1ST010&ST001FLMN000N 2CB012&CB001FHMN000N 1CI272&CI001FNMN000N 8CI429&CI001FNMN000N 01/00 Q0992
01/03/2017 21:28:33 Added node 21849
01/03/2017 21:28:33 Simconnect exception: 3
01/03/2017 21:28:33 Added helicopter: FTS02, AS 350 Ecureuil DHFS, as AS 350 Ecureuil DHFS
01/03/2017 21:29:05 Added node 59319
01/03/2017 21:29:05 Connection established 59319
01/03/2017 21:29:06 Added plane: , JFAI_CT_Airfield, as JFAI_KC1
01/03/2017 21:29:32 Removed helicopter: FTS02, AS 350 Ecureuil DHFS, as AS 350 Ecureuil DHFS

this is where mac appeared and dissappeared again.......and again.....

01/03/2017 21:29:32 Removed node 21849
01/03/2017 21:31:12 Removed plane: ZH268, Grob Tutor T Mk1, as Grob Tutor T Mk1
01/03/2017 21:31:12 Removed node 53322
01/03/2017 21:31:33 Added node 18091
01/03/2017 21:31:33 Simconnect exception: 3
01/03/2017 21:31:33 Added helicopter: FTS02, AS 350 Ecureuil DHFS, as AS 350 Ecureuil DHFS
01/03/2017 21:32:32 Removed helicopter: FTS02, AS 350 Ecureuil DHFS, as AS 350 Ecureuil DHFS
01/03/2017 21:32:32 Removed node 18091
01/03/2017 21:33:10 Added node 1179
01/03/2017 21:33:10 Added helicopter: FTS02, AS 350 Ecureuil DHFS, as AS 350 Ecureuil DHFS
01/03/2017 21:34:09 Removed helicopter: FTS02, AS 350 Ecureuil DHFS, as AS 350 Ecureuil DHFS
01/03/2017 21:34:09 Removed node 1179
01/03/2017 21:36:55 Added node 19331
01/03/2017 21:36:55 Simconnect exception: 3
01/03/2017 21:36:55 Added helicopter: FTS02, AS 350 Ecureuil DHFS, as AS 350 Ecureuil DHFS
01/03/2017 21:37:55 Removed helicopter: FTS02, AS 350 Ecureuil DHFS, as AS 350 Ecureuil DHFS
01/03/2017 21:37:55 Removed node 19331

followed by lots of simconnect exception 3's........

we gave up after an hour of testing and trying to fly with Mac, but to no avail.

(just noted from my own report that Mac's connection would last for EXACTLY 1 min and then the connection was lost. REF timings from the monitor log)

Hope this helps Peter,

Dean

[dan]

Good day Peter, is there any conclusion as to what might be happening with the issues in this post?
Cheers

[Peter]

Good day Peter, is there any conclusion as to what might be happening with the issues in this post?
Cheers

Hi Dan,

Not had a chance to look at this one much. Just reading through it again, it's interesting that the node got removed after exactly 60 seconds, three times. The timeout is set to 30s, so I'm not sure what happened there. Will take a look.

Re: apparent lag. I would always check your wind settings in the aircraft list to see if that's the problem. Different wind settings is a big problem for formation flying, as you can imagine. I need to revisit the weather settings at some point because there are some gremlins lurking there.

Re: exceptions. I cleared up some exceptions very recently, can't remember if it was 1.1.8 or 1.1.9 coming soon. I also need to go through the rotorcraft data and make sure the extra rotor specific variables are being synched. I think there are some things missing at the moment. The aircraft position will get updated, but if there are any engine/controls states missing then it may be a bit jumpy.

Peter

[Deano1973]

Hi Peter,

This is just to inform you that I was able to extensively test multiple helicopter types last night with six or seven other members of our org' on-line. Despite using various weather scenarios ( some RW static, others RW updating, others still no weather ) and despite a good hours' worth of extensive attempts to get JoinFS v1.1.6 to trip-up and display jitters and issues, it behaved perfectly! The helicopters were all super smooth with all animations showing precisely as they should, including spinning rotors etc.

I cannot fathom why some users have such issues and others none, but I have to assume now that JoinFS has not been the primary cause of these issues. Just wanted to let you know as it would appear you may be searching for gremlins that possibly don't exist in the software.

Cheers,

[Peter]

Thanks, Dean. You're absolutely right, it's also important to know when things are working correctly. I usually have to go along with the 'no news is good news' way of assessing this.

I thought I may be missing some helicopter data such as rotor brake, clutch and trim, but it's obviously not having any detrimental effect on performance. I may still add them just for completeness.

Peter